Hoping for the best for everyone affected. Irma is a mega-blender, may set all time record windspeed for Atlantic storm, and on the way to Florida by Sunday. On twitter the hastag: #Irma
Just as man-made climate change usually causes long droughts in hurricanes, this month it causes #&@Hurricanes*$&*! Not just Irma, but Jose as well.
Ryan Maue: Hurricane expert, skeptic, estimates Irma is so fast, it ought to be called a Cat #6. “Simple physical arg for Category 6 at 170-knots (Haiyan) is power or destructiveness is v³ in knots = 2-times v³ at 140-knots.”
In an update Maue predicts 190mph: “Based on near perfect environment for #IrmaHurricane to intensify, expecting a peak of 900 mb central pressure & 190 mph in next 24-36 hrs.”
Radar simulation from NOAA’s flagship hurricane model (HWRF) for Category 5 Hurricane #Irma for next 5-days. pic.twitter.com/MUtYybVjHV
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 5, 2017
Prepare to be told your car causes Hurricanes. Keep these Climate Depot points handy — Hurricanes: 1) NOAA: ‘It is premature to conclude (AGW has) already had a detectable impact on’ hurricanes & 2) NOAA: U.S. Record 11 Years Without Major (Cat 3+) Hurricane Strike & 3) 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers reveal the lack of connection between hurricanes & ‘global warming’.
HWRF (Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast)
Oh my … Hurricane #Irma just entered “beast mode” … incredible convection flaring. Satellite estimates now > T 7.0 and Category 5. pic.twitter.com/nk5U2r5QsO
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 5, 2017
I see there’s quite a lot of coverage on WattsUp: Hurricane expert: ‘#Irma should reach 200 mph winds’, | Climate Craziness of the Week – @kurteichenwald: “I predicted Irma using ‘climate equation’ 100% correct” | Hurricane expert Maue: extrapolating scale, #Irma could be a “Category 6” |
“Big” is not a good descriptor for a storm. Does it refer to size, intensity, or both?
72
Unprecedented.
52
I read the sarc into your comment Robert.
20
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/irma-is-no-ordinary-category-five-hurricane/8877184
I like how they bold all the scary bits, it makes it so much easier to skim read. The one bit they probably should have bolded though but didn’t, was the part about a similar hurricane almost 90 years ago
204
Hey how come I don’t get a red thumb ? Oh I forgot the sarc tag !
82
Florida Keys, Labor Day, 1935. 185 mph, 892 mbar. Cat 5 at landfall.
Camille in 1969 was “only” 900 mbar but was clocked at 190 mph. Cat 5 at landfall. Would Camille have been the top monster if it hadn’t busted measuring gear and scared off reconnaissance flights?
Now Irma. Whether or not it turns out to be faster than Camille, more intense than Labor Day, more damaging than Katrina 2005, more deadly than the Great San Calixto Hurricane of 1780…our new state religion will find a deep and special theological meaning in Irma. Goddess Gaia will be wanting her sacrifices and the temple priests will want their cut. Such is life in an age of belief.
292
Putting up the shutters & tying down the boats.
Best guess puts her to our east which means wind but little
storm surge as we are on the west coast.
We have wet ground from much rain lately, so trees are likely to topple.
We have an Evac Buddy family on the east coast…depending on the wobble
we head for their house or they come to ours.
Wish us luck. We got the “back side” of Andrew too, and it was still major
& did lot of damage. Worriesome/
150
CAGW note. Our coal fired plant & distribution are quite hardened after many storms.
Concrete poles, xformers on platforms, Gas nipples on underground to pressurize them to keep water at bay.
Power may be out for a bit as trees coming down break lines, but the plant has been up for thirty years.
Fields of solar and our few windmills may not do well. The religion may prosper, but a solar field badly
damaged from flying debris, which will include bricks & roof tiles from past experience, may be a sobering
dose of reality. We don’t ask about belief during shelter or rescue; 100 year threats don’t carry any weight when you are
wet and hungry. Those that have share & don’t talk politics. This will be especially local, because the federal
resources are already very stressed.
120
Do you have storm shutters for all windows?
I lived in cyclone alley in northwest Australia for a few years. The houses were built in the 1960 and 1970s and were rated for category 5 cyclones. They suffered very little damaged. The main protection were cyclone rated screens on all windows plus roofs tied down to the foundations.
In recent times there has been thorough analysis of the response of various house designs to damaging winds. The initial cause of failure is most likely a window breaking caused by flying debris thereby allowing the roof to be pressurised an being lifted off. The cyclone screens were designed to stop something like a chunk of wood moving at high speed. There are now Australian Standards for testing such screens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyNtmMT6xGc
Anyhow prepare to batten down and/or evacuate. Good luck.
140
33 years in this location.
Miami code windows Plus steel shutters that bolt on.
Tile roof with tie downs.
Reinforced garage door.
We have been through storms that took down trees in the yard, & water over
the seawall to within 6″, but none stronger than a 2.
Unless one has the misfortune to be in the eyewall, most total destruction comes
from the tornadoes that spin up on the edge of he wind bands.
If its forecast to be more than a one here, we won’t be. Thanks for the good wishes.
150
A Floridian professor of sociology claimed that Hurricane Harvey was tantamount to divine retribution for Trump voters.
In that case, is Hurricane Irma divine retribution for Trump voters, or for sociology professors who say even stupid things than normal?
Sadly, Kenneth Storey is not the only one expressing glee at the thought of probable death and destruction as a result of natural weather patterns.
120
Glad to see he was fired for making such dumb comments. Besides we should see a much bigger storm or major earthquake hitting Australia soon given our leader is much worse than Trump, yet nothing as disastrous is on the horizon, thankfully.
90
When you’ve got the likes of Turnbull, Weatherill, and Andrews at the helm, who needs natural disasters?
110
Hurricane, typhoon or cyclone,
Without man’s paltry warming have blown,
Since time immemorial,
In great swirls, equatorial,
With each named, in its tropical zone.
100
Pity the poorer folks. They also end up worse off than the well-off as a result of natural disasters. You will see plenty of coverage of the damage in Florida, but much less in Antigua Puerto Rico and Cuba.
When it his Florida the hurricane is likely to have abated somewhat as well.
60
This is off topic. Sorry Jo.
It’s an interesting weather map if you live in the states. Give it a try and let me know.
Presumably a little experimentation with editing the URL can produce a map for other locations.
20
This has a lot more capability than I had time to explore when I posted the link. You can get major cities and a zoom map for some of them. But it’s apparently limited to U.S. and what parts of Mexico and Canada you can see from the main map.
I haven’t looked at the weather in South Florida which should be showing some significant wind by now. I care but I can’t help anyone and I don’t need to wallow around in disaster. I’ve seen too much already.
00
Yes, another horrific hurricane in hurricane season. Right after Houston.
Unfortunately, a fact of life but great news when it is severe. We get the same in Australia
Like Far North Queensland or our entire Northern Tropical Coastline, it is not a question of whether hurricanes will hit you but when and where. Darwin was utterly unprepared for Cyclone Tracey in 1974.
The inventions of holidays, mass jet travel, airconditioning and a love of beaches and a worship of hot weather, even the inventions of swimming, snorkeling, scubadiving and of course our conquering the deadly Yellow Fever and Malaria which killed so many in the building of the Panama canal, this regular disaster is part of our lives now and the permanent residents of these island paradises.
The news outlets feed on tragedy and the Climate Change people act as if all this is new rather than tragic and quite predictable news.
However to fully understand the opportunistic reporting on the 15 Hurricances a year which hit Florida and the Carribbean, you have to read FARK. “It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News”. You can almost hear the hope in the voices that something really terrible happens and the disappointment when nothing does.
The real tragedies are those very poor communities which will suffer so badly and take years to recover and lose their power for months, not days while ultra rich countries keep building completely windmills where they are least needed. The $1.5Trillion a year spent on absurd attempts to lower CO2 only in rich countries like Australia are a symbol of unthinking selfishness, not need or practicality. A small fraction of that money would help the very poor in places like Haiti, which are paradise for most of the year and utter hell for a few days. This is not Climate Change. This is life in the tropics.
If you choose to retire to Florida or Far North Queensland or a Pacific Island in the Tropics, you have to accept devastating hurricanes as a certainty. As our Hamilton Island struggles to rebuild the resort, as Houston slowly recovers from unbelievable devastation of a major city and rebuilding continues unreported in New Orleans, the questions are only where and when the seasonal hurricanes will strike next. Mankind does not control the world’s Climates, even if they form a political committee.
Or should the absurd IPCC be asked to explain why they did not stop this? That would be as absurd as the IPCC itself.
91
This is looking really bad. Not only is Irma very big but there are two more following –Jose follows Irma and Katia is following Jose in the Gulf.
An interest piece on Tony Heller’s Real Science blog comparing USA weather conditions in 2016 to 1935 when there was a massive hurricane at the same time of the year.
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/09/1935-labor-day-hurricane-hit-on-a-very-cool-day/
40
Why There’s No Such Thing As a Category 6 Hurricane
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/news/a28075/why-category-6-hurricanes-dont-exist/
The Saffir-Simpson scale does not exist to arbitrarily classify storms into tiers based on some sort of abstract power level , or even just based on their windspeed. The Saffir-Simpson scale is designed to reflect the damage a given storm will cause to buildings and other man-made structures in its path. Category 5 is widespread, catastrophic damage. That’s not really anything worse than that.
30
CC – What if houses are made tougher and it takes a Cat 6 storm…
40
a la Pilbara building codes.
30
I don’t think anyone’s said it yet, so I will.
It’s all caused by Man Made Climate Change!
We’re doomed.
10
Not according to David Dilley, who was the only person to correctly predict this hurricane season eight months in advance, based on natural cycles.
‘On what’s behind the hurricanes, the 40-year veteran does not believe it has anything to do with manmade global warming and higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations. According to Dilley: “I nailed it 8 months in advance and the likely Texas hurricane – all using natural cycles of the earth-moon-sun interactions – and No Global Warming.”
Notricks Zone
10
Hurricane Harvey at the peak of it’s CAT IV strength released the equivalent energy of 1 Million Hiroshima Bombs per Day http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-1-million-hiroshima-bombs-per-day/
It is hard to wrap ones head around the amount of energy being drawn from the warm ocean waters and atmosphere by three hurricanes all spinning at the same time. Katia is projected to go SW into Mexico. Jose is generally following the track of Irma right now.
As of the last Hurricane Hunter fly through, Irma had a pressure of 920 mb but the storm and it’s eye have grown considerably over the last few days. What this means is that peak sustained winds have decreased so the storm is now a powerful CAT IV but the area of the most powerful storm surge has increased. Thus despite a bit of a decrease in wind speeds Irma is actually just as dangerous if not more so than it was 3 days ago. At this time it looks like Miami is directly in the crosshairs and then the storm will track right up the center of Florida. The size of the storm now will cover the entire length of Florida from North to South if it tracks right up the middle of the state as NOAA predicts right now.
It is easy to think we are watching something unprecedented with so much hype and disinformation in the news. The amount of bull hockey spewing from the alarmists these days is just ridiculous and I think that fewer and fewer people are taking their rhetoric seriously these days.
It is now safe to say that Irma will not be the most powerful nor even close to the most deadly hurricane to have ever hit the United States contrary to some claims. The damage Irma causes may set a new record in dollar amount but that metric is dependent upon the amount of development along the track of a storm. The unnamed hurricane that struck Galveston, TX Sept 8th, 1900 and then tracked on into the Texas mainland killed about 10,000 and the deaths from Irma will almost certainly be around 1% or less than that because it is clear that most people are taking this storm seriously and getting out of the way. It is also not unprecedented to have three Atlantic hurricanes spinning at the same time. Most recently there were three hurricanes all at the same time in 2010 and prior to that in 1998 and 1893 there were four hurricanes at the same time.
00