OT: Maria devastates Puerto Rico, but is unlikely to make US east coast landfall
- Thread starter RU848789
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Everything is down, the videos are horrific, but we won't know just how bad it is until tomorrow.
For the record, though I shouldn't have to remind people of this...
Puerto Rico IS part of the United States , all Puerto Ricans are US Citizens and Americans.
For the record, though I shouldn't have to remind people of this...
Puerto Rico IS part of the United States , all Puerto Ricans are US Citizens and Americans.
Pretty bad stuff down in PR.
I see it's on a possible track for new York and New Jersey next Saturday?
I see it's on a possible track for new York and New Jersey next Saturday?
No. There's no guidance that suggests that. All models are currently OTS.
There's a website called "spaghettimodels.com".
I never post them because people will always pick one of the weird, obscure little models that shows them what they think they want to see and proclaim that one the "winner". Hell, most of the time I don't even look at them. I look at the ensemble means, they tell me everything I need to know.
Do people actually think I don't know that Puerto Rico is part of the US? The issue is that there are only so many characters available for a thread title and I wanted to convey the immediate catastrophic risks to Puerto Rico, while also noting that the effects on the US east coast were uncertain, but I had to truncate the message a bit.
You should consider editing the title to read "OT: .............; CONUS effects uncertain still."
Well said. For those not familiar with models, on one of the earlier threads (Harvey, I think) I posted a long explanation for why ensembles are the way to go for cyclones beyond 5 days and why spaghetti maps of all of the models are usually only useful within 5 days, when the operational runs of each model are usually closer to each other since one is closer to the event (and the error bars are smaller). Maybe I'll dig that up later, but for now I'll try to be brief. No, really.
Briefly, the ensembles are a form of Monte Carlo analysis, where one specific model is run with 30-50 "variations" featuring small perturbations of initial conditions, reflecting the fact that the initial conditions for any model run are not usually known perfectly well, globally in 3-D. Because weather is chaotic, by nature, these perturbations cause the outcomes to diverge as the model propagates out in time - the ensemble mean or average of all the outcomes, often gives a better representation than the operational model, which is a single run, especially beyond 5 days. The ensembles are especially useful for the better models like the Euro, which again has crushed the competition on Maria.
The variations out in time diminish greatly as one gets within 3-5 days of the event, such that the ensembles for a single model aren't necessarily going to be better than looking at the variation across multiple good models in the shorter timeframe. Although at the end of the day, at least for Harvey, Irma and Maria, so far, the Euro has simply been king and most of the other models could have largely been ignored. And right now, the Euro operational run from earlier today has Maria coming within 150-200 miles of the Outer Banks on Day 7 to within 150 miles of Cape Cod on Day 9, but the error bars that far out are significantly more than 200 miles. So, while a US east coast landfall is unlikely, it cannot be ruled out at this time.
Here's the NHC track through Day 5 (which is close to the Euro) and the Euro at Day 7.
Sadly, Puerto Rico has been devastated by 140-155 mph winds, as the storm weakened just a bit from the 175 mph winds a few hours before landfall, due to an eyewall replacement cycle, which reduced wind speeds near the center, but also led to a larger storm with greater winds further from the center.
In addition, Maria featured record 6-10 foot storm surges, and 12-24" of rain or more in the mountains (with 6" or more to come, as Maria pulls away), leading to unprecedented flooding and mudslides. The extent of the damage won't be known for days, but it's already known that the entire island is without power and running water (or working sewer systems) and there are reports of major to catastrophic damage to many to most buildings, including devastation of entire villages and towns. See the NY Times report below for details.
With regard to where Maria, now a Cat 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds and a central pressure of 958 mbar (way up from the top 10 all-time low pressure it had of 909 mbar last night) will go, it's likely that she'll shoot the gap between the US east coast and Bermuda, staying off-shore, but that's still too far out to be certain. See my post above for more on Maria's track.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico.html
In addition, Maria featured record 6-10 foot storm surges, and 12-24" of rain or more in the mountains (with 6" or more to come, as Maria pulls away), leading to unprecedented flooding and mudslides. The extent of the damage won't be known for days, but it's already known that the entire island is without power and running water (or working sewer systems) and there are reports of major to catastrophic damage to many to most buildings, including devastation of entire villages and towns. See the NY Times report below for details.
With regard to where Maria, now a Cat 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds and a central pressure of 958 mbar (way up from the top 10 all-time low pressure it had of 909 mbar last night) will go, it's likely that she'll shoot the gap between the US east coast and Bermuda, staying off-shore, but that's still too far out to be certain. See my post above for more on Maria's track.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico.html
This is what America has always done. What issue or problem have we not kicked down the road until it was a full blown crisis?
FWIW, It may take 3-6 months for power to be restored.
And on a personal note, my parents are in Quebradillas (NW PR). Last time I spoke to them was 930 Tuesday night and obviously had no contact with them. It is unreal down there.
And on a personal note, my parents are in Quebradillas (NW PR). Last time I spoke to them was 930 Tuesday night and obviously had no contact with them. It is unreal down there.
My parents retired to PR and are just the next town over in Isabela. Last i spoke with them was Tuesday afternoon. Phone lines, cell lines, water and electricity are all down. They are old and not in the greatest of health, so being without electricity and water for a prolong amount of time is not good at all. Then we have to worry about flooding as well.
The northwestern side of the island has better infrastructure than the rest so I am hoping it doesn't take months for them. But it took weeks in some places in super rich NJ after Sandy with our unlimited resources as we all know. so it is not looking good.
No offense was meant; I just wanted to remind everyone that P.R. is part of the United States -- some people may not realize that.
No worries - I know you meant well. Funny thing: this morning, I came across something very similar from LiveScience, where they used the title, "Could Hurricane Maria Make Landfall in the US?" in an article where they were talking about impacts to PR and the mainland. I assume they did something similar to me, truncating a title to fit the space allowed.
https://www.livescience.com/60463-where-is-hurricane-maria-heading.html?utm_source=notification
Yeah, from what I heard on TV the power grid in PR is so old and poorly maintained that they'll almost be starting from scratch in many areas.
As for Sandy, I spoke to a couple of power company employees brought in from Alabama and elsewhere to help repair the power lines down here. They couldn't believe how old and poorly maintained the system was. One of the bigger issues getting power back was the lack of replacement parts (along with politics within the power community). Take that and add in how much worse it was and PR being an island where workers and equipment must all be shipped in and 6 months almost seems a best case scenario.
Folks, let's keep this from straying into politics.
Dear lord I hope not - just the effects on health issues alone would be catastrophic.
RU848789:
If these storms are just going to be getting worse and worse over time, how bad can they get ?
Irma covered the whole state of Florida at one point. Maria's winds were as strong as 165 mph ?
Is some gigantic, monster storm that covers half of the US waiting down the road for us over the next few years ? One that covers the whole East Coast or one with 200 mph winds ?
How big can these things get ?
Get Alabama Power on the scene. They were awesome here after Sandy.
Yes they were. Of all the people from around the country I came across they were the best. I ended up hanging out with a crew for a while they waited for a JCP&L rep to come and "allow" them to make a connection. They were not happy as they said they could get a lot more done quicker if it wasn't for the politics between power co's.
The other thing that stuck with me was their amazement that so much was above ground in this day and time.
Read my earlier post. There's no clear cut proof that hurricanes are any worse or more frequent now than they used to be. Even a 1-2F seasonal rise in Atlantic sea surface temps will at most fuel maybe a small increase in storm strength. It is unusual, though, to get 3 such destructive storms in such close succession, but not unprecedented - although the US impacts, including Puerto Rico, of course, are probably unprecedented.
To me, though, that's just part of normal variance - we've only been recording hurricanes for 150 years and only doing it really well for maybe 50 years, which actually does not provide enough of a sample size to know if this kind of thing is unprecedented for the US in the last 1000 years or so. As I said in the other post, though, additional global warming to levels some models indicate, would likely lead to more and more significant storms. Just another reason to not be ignoring anthropogenic global warming.
Maria is back up to Cat 3, with 120 mph winds, but is likely to weaken beyond day 2-3, as shear levels start to increase. Model consensus is out to sea with Maria staying 200+ miles offshore...except for the Canadian, which has been pretty wonky lately, especially on Irma - anyway, it shows a direct hit on the Outer Banks in 5 days as maybe a minimal hurricane. I wouldn't worry too much about the Canadian, but it still underscores the uncertainty in forecasts 5+ days out, as the Canadian is also much faster than the Euro, GFS or others, which don't reach OBX latitude until Day 7-8.
Do you agree with those who say that the rise in ocean level (caused at least in part by global warming) has made storm surge worse than it would otherwise be? And that ocean temperatures are producing the kind of rapid intensification we've seen with Harvey and Irma?
I don't. (my 2 cents, I know you didn't ask me).
There's no multiplier effect with storm surge. Estimates are that sea levels have risen 4 to 8 inches over the last 100 years. So... that's your impact on storm surge. 8 inches. Maybe. Worst case scenario.
The historical record contains clear accounts of massive storm surges, going back to early colonial times. We have brutally detailed accounts of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, which inundated the entire region, completely destroyed Galveston and killed something like 10,000 people. The surge from that storm came six miles inland.
Ironically, the Galveston Hurricane - a 145 mph Cat 4 - wiped Galveston off the map and the city was never fully rebuilt. Instead, rebuilding efforts were concentrated on Houston, which was assumed to be safe from such storms.
A perfect example of whipping people into a frenzy. There'd have to be a huge divergence from the models for Maria to hit the east coast, but that doesn't stop CNN:
Hurricane Maria: US mainland is not out of the woods yet
I particularly like these statements:
Hurricane Maria: US mainland is not out of the woods yet
I particularly like these statements:
CNN has joined every other "news" site in being nothing but click bait. Just before Maria made landfall on the southeast coast of Puerto Rico their guy on the ground in San Juan was reporting that he was experiencing 175 mph winds. That never happened. Yesterday, as the eye was moving off the northwest coast, they were reporting that Puerto Rico was "still being battered by 145 mph winds". It just so happened that they were reporting this at the precise time a USAF recon flight failed to find any surface winds over 100 mph.
Agree with the sea level rise being a simple adder - an extra foot or so over the past 200 years is not trivial, but it's not making storm surges hugely greater. If a typical "major" storm surge is in the range of 6-10 feet, an extra foot would be 10-20% more.
However, using Galveston is a bit misleading. Deaths and destruction were far worse than most other storms due mostly to the fact that the beach/town were filled with beachgoers and they received essentially no warning of the surge. The 15 foot storm surge there was much less than Katrina's 27 foot surge in coastal Mississippi. The big difference in impact/deaths was that everyone knew what was going to happen in MS.
If Irma hadn't been beaten up by Cuba and had hit the east coast of Florida with 165 mph winds and record storm surges, instead of hitting the west coast with 130 mph winds and more moderate storm surges, we'd be talking about the worst hurricane catastrophe in the history of the US. People have no idea how lucky Florida got at the last minute. No idea.
camden - I wrote a bunch about what I thought about global warming's impact on storm frequency and intensity earlier on this page. My guess is that it's a very minor component currently, but if the worst global warming scenarios play out with regard to ocean temps being several degrees C warmer and sea levels being several meters greater than they are now, due to ice cap/glacier melting, then I think it's pretty obvious hurricanes will be worse than they are now from both an intensity and storm surge perspective. But we're not there now.
I don't have much issue with this report - it's factually correct. It could maybe use a little more focus on the pretty low likelihood of an east coast landfall, but I'm fine with this.
This is utter crap. I saw many "reporters" doing the same thing on many stations. Only TWC tends to refrain from way overdoing on camera live reports. They're excited, but they at least aren't making crap up usually, since they're actual meteorologists.
Outrageous rainfall amounts in 24-36 hours, with 10-25" across most of Puerto Rico and some places with up to 36". Harvey had more rain overall, but not more rain per hour. I'm pretty sure we haven't yet seen footage of anywhere near the worst of the flooding - I'm very afraid for the casualty toll when the waters receded, especially in the countryside.
Fortunately, I think, Maria's trail of destruction has largely ended. If the NHC track verifies out to 24 hours it appears that even Cockburntown, lying at the easternmost end of the Turks & Caicos, will be right on the edge of hurricane-force winds on the right side of the storm. I wouldn't expect much additional wind damage and there won't be much of a surge when Maria passes.
And peak wind gusts over 150 mph in many locations...
Still having trouble comprehending how a 100 mile wide x 40 miles high rectangular island in the Caribbean w 3.5 million people like PR can deal with a total power outage and no cell phone service. Hospitals have no power and no refrigeration of pharma drugs that seniors depend upon daily ? Staffing in hospitals must be very limited as service workers are at home saving their family members.
The PR economy is Down to zero for at least a year IMO. As close to a total disaster that I can imagine. Very sad situation.
All that notwithstanding the fact that we may very well have to deploy National Guard troops there, perhaps for quite some time.
