OT: Official Hurricane Irma Thread
- Thread starter RU4Real
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From Big Pine Key eastward, which generally experienced the worst conditions, in the stronger eastern eyewall, the winds and surge were the worst (I posted a pic awhile ago that supposedly showed a 10+ foot surge on Cudjoe Key, about 10 miles east of Key West); reports I've seen are that Key West was flooded but not to that extent. These aren't complete reports, though, so will need to wait to be sure. Lots of interesting observations with this storm. I can only imagine what would've happened if Irma hadn't come so close to Cuba and maintained 160 mph winds while slamming into the Keys and the Gulf Coast.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-irma-florida-keys-landfall-photos-damage-videos-2017-9
All things considered, Florida got off much easier than was expected.
The post-mortem on this storm is going to be very interesting. In the final analysis Irma's verified track rendered the Miami-Dade evacuation utterly superfluous. The winds weren't as expected and the storm surge was way less than expected. My step-brother lives in Weston, his in-laws have a new place on Marco Island. They actually went east and are staying with him.
It may be time to consider the accumulated body of knowledge with respect to these storms, in addition to the math that drives the models. On AMWx one of the mets stated, quite accurately, that storms transiting the Florida Strait seem to always verify west of the 24+ hour guidance. What would be really interesting to me is a modeled study that shows us how the <24 hour tracks of all these storms verified, historically, as compared to the guidance at 120, 96, etc.
Absolutely, this could have been far, far worse, both from an intensity perspective (Cuba) and from a track perspective up the peninsula, with an east coast track being the more catastrophic track, both with regard to the storm surge likely being greater with the stronger side of the storm throwing water onto the land and the much greater population at risk.
I asked a question a few days ago on AmericanWx about almost exactly what you said with regard to accumulated knowledge, although I was asking about that with regard to major hurricanes approaching the US east coast, as my intuition tells me those tend to go east of where they're predicted to go (like Matthew last year). I wanted to know if anyone had analyzed storms of interest, like the much smaller subset of major landfalling/near landfalling storms, instead of just analyzing overall verification scores for any storms. Didn't really get an answer, but often don't in very active threads - may ask it again as a separate thread.
With respect to evacuations and emergency planning, in hindsight, the evacuations of the Keys and Gulf Coast were clearly warranted, while the evacuations of the east coast were mostly unnecessary (although damage there was more than expected yesterday) - I took a bit of a risk and told my dad to sit tight in Vero on Weds/Thurs until we knew the track better (knowing he could high tail it across to Tampa if he needed to in a few hours) and that worked out for him, unlike the many who fled to the Gulf Coast.
But as you well know, with the uncertainty of the science and the need to implement evacuation plans for millions of people 3+ days in advance, what could have been done differently? At 11 am Thursday the model consensus (and NHC track) was for an east coast track and by about 5 pm Friday that consensus was for a west coast track - and for both of those consensus tracks the entire peninsula was still within the "cone of uncertainty."
That's why they essentially felt they had to evacuate the Keys and the east coasts and some of South Florida starting mid-week and didn't really start the evacuations of the west coast, in earnest until Thursday into Friday. Yeah it was terribly inconvenient for those on the east coast, but in the face of uncertainty and potential catastrophe if evacuations weren't ordered, I think it was the right decision.
What made all of this even more complex was that an error of only 50 miles for when the turn to the NW actually happened from near Cuba (and it happened around 8 pm last night), would've made the difference between the track up the west coast and a track up the center of the peninsula, which would've had far more impact on the east coast. That prediction was hard enough to make on Saturday, let alone on Wednesday or Thursday. Hence the conundrum for evacuation planning.
What might be interesting is if they could figure out a way to hold off further on evacuations, but figure out some way to do them much more efficiently (contraflow), so they could be done in 2 days - they maybe then could've held off on evacuations until Friday morning and seen that they didn't really need to evacuate the east coast. But on the flip side, the east coast was still in the cone until very late Friday, which would not give enough time for a fast evacuation. My guess is any storm like this that could come up the peninsula will always have evacuations of far more people than end up being necessary.
Apologies for the long post, but it's something I've thought about a lot and just started typing, lol. The track archive is worth looking at and I posted the Thursday and Friday tracks for comparison.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2017/IRMA_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line_and_wind
You realize, of course, that if this were a snowstorm in New Jersey, tons of posters would be yelling "bust!" and questioning your sanity and objectivity.
So, thankfully, the storm did not cause the devastation that forecasters had projected. Broadcast media already reporting a curious mix of relief and resentment/anger per the public's early reaction. Rather safe than sorry? Not hardly, it seems. "How could they get it so wrong, these scientist weather nerds?" We are a fickle lot. Surprise. Surprise. Now, inevitably, next time, political pressure could work against these prudent evacuations, and the result will be tragic. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
People, in general, seem more tolerant of uncertainty and error when there are potentially life-threatening conditions likely if one does not evacuate - no snowstorms I can recall require evacuations. Snowstorms are usually much more of an inconvenience issue (yes, with deaths occasionally involved, but not directly resulting from snow, except in very unusual cases).
bac will never understand that I can root for snow every time, yet not let that affect what I post about snowstorms, as all I ever care about is being accurate - I absolutely hate being wrong, much more than I like snow. With regard to emotional investment, though, it depends - I had a lot more invested in this storm with a father and sister who live in Florida and several very good friends, too.
I could be wrong, but I don't recollect bac as being all that interested in tropical cyclones. He's a snow thread guy, because he's invested in heavy snowfalls. I, on the other hand, don't have a lot of use for big snows. Never really liked snow.
For me, there are few passive activities more interesting than tracking a really good, long-track Cape Verde storm. 90% of the time they wind up not affecting the continental U.S. The other 10% have comprised some of our most historical hurricanes. When you get a storm that makes it to Cat 1 by the time it hits 40 west, it's probably going to be a monster.
Over about the next six months you'll be able to read of encounters with Irma by boats that rode it out. Those stories are always really interesting. How sailors decide upon, and deploy, various heavy weather tactics adds to the compendium of information and helps everyone who sails.
I would like to say that I greatly appreciate what @RU848789 has added to this thread and echo his previous statement - it's been a pleasure.
Tomorrow morning the center of a decaying Irma should be right around Cross City, embarking on its inland trek up through Georgia. Gonna be a long night for folks around the Tampa area, but it doesn't appear to be catastrophic, by any means. Irma's back side convection just isn't recovering and, accordingly, west coast storm surge has been less than predicted - and feared - just this morning.
Not 100% in the clear yet, but I'm extremely glad this was a bust. Hoping to be able to leave the hospital and go home by Tuesday morning at the latest... the county has to assess the damage to make sure roads are safe. This has been a wild ride! Thanks to everyone for your wonderful forecasting.
Watching the "wind radar" it so looks like this thing is tracking east, while watching the actual radar it looks like it is going west.
What's that about?
Also did the predictions just completely miss that this thing was going to blow all the water away from the west coast and thus greatly diminish the storm surge effect on the back end of the storm?
What's that about?
Also did the predictions just completely miss that this thing was going to blow all the water away from the west coast and thus greatly diminish the storm surge effect on the back end of the storm?
Good during hurricane season, weird during the winter with their snowstorm names that the government and other weather outlets don't endorse.
Got hammered in St John's south of Jacksonville last night to right now. My street has turned into a river, garage flooded, both cars flooded, a couple more inches and it's in the house. I am about a mile from the St John's river.
Worst part about all of this is I move back to NJ on November 1rst. On the bright side I have much less left to bring and my family is safe. Hope I can hold out.
I have been through Irene, Sandy, Matthew and this one blew them all out of the water. And to think it hit me at a category 1. This one was not a bust for me.
And I don't live in a flood zone. I can't help to wonder if all the building that has been done has made this flooding worse.
Thanks for all of your work. It was very helpful.Absolutely, this could have been far, far worse, both from an intensity perspective (Cuba) and from a track perspective up the peninsula, with an east coast track being the more catastrophic track, both with regard to the storm surge likely being greater with the stronger side of the storm throwing water onto the land and the much greater population at risk.
I asked a question a few days ago on AmericanWx about almost exactly what you said with regard to accumulated knowledge, although I was asking about that with regard to major hurricanes approaching the US east coast, as my intuition tells me those tend to go east of where they're predicted to go (like Matthew last year). I wanted to know if anyone had analyzed storms of interest, like the much smaller subset of major landfalling/near landfalling storms, instead of just analyzing overall verification scores for any storms. Didn't really get an answer, but often don't in very active threads - may ask it again as a separate thread.
With respect to evacuations and emergency planning, in hindsight, the evacuations of the Keys and Gulf Coast were clearly warranted, while the evacuations of the east coast were mostly unnecessary (although damage there was more than expected yesterday) - I took a bit of a risk and told my dad to sit tight in Vero on Weds/Thurs until we knew the track better (knowing he could high tail it across to Tampa if he needed to in a few hours) and that worked out for him, unlike the many who fled to the Gulf Coast.
But as you well know, with the uncertainty of the science and the need to implement evacuation plans for millions of people 3+ days in advance, what could have been done differently? At 11 am Thursday the model consensus (and NHC track) was for an east coast track and by about 5 pm Friday that consensus was for a west coast track - and for both of those consensus tracks the entire peninsula was still within the "cone of uncertainty."
That's why they essentially felt they had to evacuate the Keys and the east coasts and some of South Florida starting mid-week and didn't really start the evacuations of the west coast, in earnest until Thursday into Friday. Yeah it was terribly inconvenient for those on the east coast, but in the face of uncertainty and potential catastrophe if evacuations weren't ordered, I think it was the right decision.
What made all of this even more complex was that an error of only 50 miles for when the turn to the NW actually happened from near Cuba (and it happened around 8 pm last night), would've made the difference between the track up the west coast and a track up the center of the peninsula, which would've had far more impact on the east coast. That prediction was hard enough to make on Saturday, let alone on Wednesday or Thursday. Hence the conundrum for evacuation planning.
What might be interesting is if they could figure out a way to hold off further on evacuations, but figure out some way to do them much more efficiently (contraflow), so they could be done in 2 days - they maybe then could've held off on evacuations until Friday morning and seen that they didn't really need to evacuate the east coast. But on the flip side, the east coast was still in the cone until very late Friday, which would not give enough time for a fast evacuation. My guess is any storm like this that could come up the peninsula will always have evacuations of far more people than end up being necessary.
Apologies for the long post, but it's something I've thought about a lot and just started typing, lol. The track archive is worth looking at and I posted the Thursday and Friday tracks for comparison.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2017/IRMA_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line_and_wind
And to add to this, from a personal perspective, the unnecessary evacuation of the east coast caused a lot of trouble for the west coast residents who wanted to evacuate but could not. The east coast residents were told to get out early, and they did...and took all the gas and hotel rooms with them. When the west coast residents were told to get out, they had few options, as the remaining shelters were largely full, there were no available hotel rooms all the way thru Macon, GA and there wasn't enough gasoline to get them there.Absolutely, this could have been far, far worse, both from an intensity perspective (Cuba) and from a track perspective up the peninsula, with an east coast track being the more catastrophic track, both with regard to the storm surge likely being greater with the stronger side of the storm throwing water onto the land and the much greater population at risk.
I asked a question a few days ago on AmericanWx about almost exactly what you said with regard to accumulated knowledge, although I was asking about that with regard to major hurricanes approaching the US east coast, as my intuition tells me those tend to go east of where they're predicted to go (like Matthew last year). I wanted to know if anyone had analyzed storms of interest, like the much smaller subset of major landfalling/near landfalling storms, instead of just analyzing overall verification scores for any storms. Didn't really get an answer, but often don't in very active threads - may ask it again as a separate thread.
With respect to evacuations and emergency planning, in hindsight, the evacuations of the Keys and Gulf Coast were clearly warranted, while the evacuations of the east coast were mostly unnecessary (although damage there was more than expected yesterday) - I took a bit of a risk and told my dad to sit tight in Vero on Weds/Thurs until we knew the track better (knowing he could high tail it across to Tampa if he needed to in a few hours) and that worked out for him, unlike the many who fled to the Gulf Coast.
But as you well know, with the uncertainty of the science and the need to implement evacuation plans for millions of people 3+ days in advance, what could have been done differently? At 11 am Thursday the model consensus (and NHC track) was for an east coast track and by about 5 pm Friday that consensus was for a west coast track - and for both of those consensus tracks the entire peninsula was still within the "cone of uncertainty."
That's why they essentially felt they had to evacuate the Keys and the east coasts and some of South Florida starting mid-week and didn't really start the evacuations of the west coast, in earnest until Thursday into Friday. Yeah it was terribly inconvenient for those on the east coast, but in the face of uncertainty and potential catastrophe if evacuations weren't ordered, I think it was the right decision.
What made all of this even more complex was that an error of only 50 miles for when the turn to the NW actually happened from near Cuba (and it happened around 8 pm last night), would've made the difference between the track up the west coast and a track up the center of the peninsula, which would've had far more impact on the east coast. That prediction was hard enough to make on Saturday, let alone on Wednesday or Thursday. Hence the conundrum for evacuation planning.
What might be interesting is if they could figure out a way to hold off further on evacuations, but figure out some way to do them much more efficiently (contraflow), so they could be done in 2 days - they maybe then could've held off on evacuations until Friday morning and seen that they didn't really need to evacuate the east coast. But on the flip side, the east coast was still in the cone until very late Friday, which would not give enough time for a fast evacuation. My guess is any storm like this that could come up the peninsula will always have evacuations of far more people than end up being necessary.
Apologies for the long post, but it's something I've thought about a lot and just started typing, lol. The track archive is worth looking at and I posted the Thursday and Friday tracks for comparison.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2017/IRMA_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line_and_wind
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Blowing the water away from the west coast on the front end of the storm didn't diminish the surge on the back end, that was entirely due to the back end of the storm getting ripped apart by Cuba's terrain and never rematerializing. There was much less onshore wind during the latter half of the storm to pile the water up on the shoreline.
Rich dog - I disagree with your evacuation post. To get a hotel room you had to call before any evacuation orders were issued. The east side got Matthew and were more reactive.
Backthoery - I'm sorry to hear you have water. I'm in Jacksonville beach and just walked the house. Much worse damage than Matthew. The wind was insane. I'm worried about the noon high tide. Hopefully the wind subsides by then.
Backthoery - I'm sorry to hear you have water. I'm in Jacksonville beach and just walked the house. Much worse damage than Matthew. The wind was insane. I'm worried about the noon high tide. Hopefully the wind subsides by then.
That's just out there for future study by emergency managers, not me. Yes, you got Matthew. The east coast got Charlie and Wilma. Do we really have to go down that road? All I'm saying is: the East coast evacuated, then when the storm didn't perform as initially forecasted, the people who ended up in danger had fewer options.
And all I'm saying is you couldn't get a hotel room past Wednesday long before anyone had a clue if it was east coast or west. This thread is loaded with posts about the inaccuracies of hurricane forecasts more than 48 hours out.
Now that the decision-making window is long past, I'll offer my 2 cents, as someone who has seen a few of these storms.
If you do not live in an area that will be dangerously compromised by storm surge or abundant flooding, you're best off having a plan to shelter in place. The requisite preparation steps and recommended kit for riding it out are easily defined and easily obtainable in the T-5 range.
Relatively high ground, a solid shelter, containerized water and non-perishable food (both for at least a week) along with a generator and fuel are all you need. In Florida, if you live between I-75 and I-95 there should never be any question of "stay or go" unless you live in a mobile home.
If you do not live in an area that will be dangerously compromised by storm surge or abundant flooding, you're best off having a plan to shelter in place. The requisite preparation steps and recommended kit for riding it out are easily defined and easily obtainable in the T-5 range.
Relatively high ground, a solid shelter, containerized water and non-perishable food (both for at least a week) along with a generator and fuel are all you need. In Florida, if you live between I-75 and I-95 there should never be any question of "stay or go" unless you live in a mobile home.
If I could have made that blink, I would. That is all that's important. Everything else can be replaced. Godspeed!
Question on storm surge - which was overstated by everyone:
Does it matter :
Does it matter :
- whether the storm is moving northward or westward, and or
- whether the storm is on the east or west side of land.
Thank you. I will say that I do enjoy the ritual of prepping. I unfortunately do not have a generator.
So, wait.....if you're moving back to NJ on 11/1, you should be able to make the Michigan State game, right?
it's easiest to visualize it rather than think about it. The water follows the wind. So, in the case of western Florida and Irma, the wind was blowing east to west for most of the time. Ergo, the tendency would be for the Gulf waters to be blown away from the coast (blowout tide, which is a term we're pretty familiar with in this part of the world). When the eyewall passes and the wind starts blowing west to east, the water will blow back inshore. In Irma's case, the winds on the back side of the storm had moderated considerably by the time it got to mainland Florida so the onshore flow allowed the water that was blown out to flow back in, but it wasn't a strong enough wind to actually pile that water up on shore.
I'd say that the direction the storm is heading plays into it as well. Like in sandy the winds north of the eye were blowing in the direct the storm was heading. Thus allowing the water to pile up.
In Irma the water did not pile up, in fact the opposite happened in there were pushed out first, thus the back side winds can only grap and pull what it can reach.
Inasmuch as relative motion impacts fetch, yes.
I have a much longer post on this back on a previous page.
My mother stayed in here walk in closet. Which is typically a pretty solid spot to be. I think all florida homes should have a nice big walk in closet double reinforced so as to act as a hurricane hideout.
