Climate Change About to Kill Again
by Primo Encarnación
Ixtapa. Acapulco. Manzanillo. Guadalajara. Puerto Vallarta. You might know some of these as ports-of-call on The Love Boat. In a few hours, however, Hurricane Patricia, the most powerful storm ever recorded in the history of the planet, is going to be making landfall there.
I’ve been to and loved all these places, at one time or another, during vacations that began when I was a kid, and that I carried on with my own children. 500-year-old Spanish architecture lies cheek-by-jowl with the most modern of hotels. Fishing fleets, commercial and vacation shipping, millions of tourists a year – all these are put at risk by a potential killer which sprang from a mild tropical storm to the most powerful category five ever in a 36-hour blink, thanks to a growing El Niño fueled by the warmest ocean temps on record.
The loss of life will probably be high, the loss of property enormous, the time to recover unforseeable, but in the meantime, the west coast in particular and all of Mexico in general will suffer a huge economic hit, as well. Which will inevitably, inexorably mean more refugees coming north to the US.
Climate change refugees.
Spare a thought or prayer for all the people about to suffer. Hunker down for the torrential rains that Patricia’s remnants will add to Texas’ woes.
Then fight to make sure every last jerkweed who contributed to this disaster enabled mass murder, pays. And pays. And pays.
El Niño is making the eastern Pacific warm, but the added push of climate change is probably what brought the water temperature up to 86°. Patricia makes a record number of category 4 or 5 hurricanes in the Pacific, and a record number in the northern hemisphere.
The WashPost’s weather blog is a good source of info:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/
Best hopes for all those about to be hit. And damnation to their own imagined hells for everyone who’s blocked action on climate change, including those at Exxon who knew about it in the 1970s and suppressed and mocked the facts.
1It’s too bad we can’t load up planes with cilmate-change deniers and put them on beaches hurricanes are about to hit–the ones that survive might have changed their minds (if not, there’s always another climate disaster…)
Yes, I know I’m being bloody-minded today. I’m just so sick of it all…climate change deniers, Reaganomics believers, end times preachers, the war on women and the poor and the hungry and the sick…
2One reason I’ve been boycotting Exxon for at least 30 years. Not climate change per se but their wars against renewable energy, lots of which wars were paid for by the Koch brothers. Google
3Exxon climate change Koch brothers.
Also, has the Hurricane Center just been recording hurricanes for 70 years? Just curious. NOT KNOCKING getting ready for a bad storm. Gotta stock up on toilet paper, flashlights, dried fruit, canned beans and meds. And good books.
4And jugs of drinking water.
5Every February I go to Barra de Navidad, a quiet little fishing village about 40 minutes north of Manzanillo. I’m terrified for those wonderful people. This seems to be a life changing storm, I hope they were all able to get to safer ground. But I don’t know what they will have to come back to when its over. Just heartbreaking.
6rAmen, PE. May the FSM tighten s/he/it’s noodley appendages around those jerkweeds throats n’ gonads (to neuter ’em).
Marge,
I’ve only bought Exxon on a very few, emergency basis, times since the Valdez disaster. Eff them.
I’ve been following this (now named) Patricia monster since Sunday, NOAA issued the first Advisories for it on Tuesday at 1500UTC. (I’m a weather freak, sue me)
I’ve also been in internet contact with some fellow sailors aboard their vessels in hopefully safe SW Mexican harbors just a short distance from what is now becoming an eye landfall in the next few hours.
Patricia still has sustained winds of 200mph, gusts to 250mph. Those are complete destruction conditions for anything in the central 60-90 mile diameter of the core.
If any of you remember the Jarrett, TX tornado, it had only a bit stronger winds in a very much smaller area, for a very much shorter time period (a few minutes/tens of minutes.
And it took the pavement off roads.
Patricia’s time chewing on a given MX coastal location will be measured in hours. Complete devastation.
And Patricia is carrying many billions of tons of water which will fall down sooner or later. And trillions? of joules of pure destructive energy.
People who haven’t experienced even small storms, let alone like this have no frame of reference to imagine a beast like this.
Hurricane Allen was almost as deep as Patricia, but fortunately hesitated, turned and weakened a bit before coming ashore near the Valley; it was scary.
For a very scary satellite view (among many available) of Patricia:
7http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/20E/imagery/rb_lalo-animated.gif
Cheryl Ann,
Someone I’ve been msging with is aboard her boat near Barra and of course following Patricia very closely (her life depends on doing so). She has been in the SW Mexican coast area for years, a superb mariner, very knowledgeable of the whole area (also Baja and Sea of Cortez).
IIRC, earlier today she commented that it looked like Barra and a number of other nearby locations she knows well will likely not exist tomorrow…
I’ll try to dig out the place names she wrote of (opinion was based on storm track as of that point in time, may have/has changed a little, but you can see from the link above what it looks like now)
8Marge Wood, to fully appreciate the cabal of Koch, war and climate denial, start with the Seven Sisters. Oil, the aphrodisiac of Fred Koch and Prescott Bush, among others, started early in the 20th century with the Seven Sisters. They’ve been scrabbling to control the world’s resources since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, maybe before then. The light bulb of awareness that came on in the 50s and again in the 70s was fully extinguished by the by paid prostitutes in their ‘research’ departments.
Idiots now think high rise condos in Dubai will save them. Good luck to them with that. Gold and currency are no substitute for potable water, food and clean air. They seriously think they can engineer or Jetson their way out of their own mess with trusty robots to clean & feed them.
Marge Wood, Elizabeth Moon and others, there’s the social science fiction story that needs to be written, before these cosmic goof balls kill us all.
9Cheryl Ann, et al.,
Some excerpts from the latest NHC Public Advisory below, 4PM CDT.
(wish I could highlight some)
Keep in mind that as bad as the winds are, the predicted storm surges of up to 30 or 40 feet in some (funneled in) locations will wipe out anything left from the wind.
IIRC, Sandy on the East Coast had about 6-10 feet of surge, and did massive damage.
Imagine a surge of 40 feet depth of moving water (~7.6 pounds per gallon) washing things away.
Even that tidal wave in Thailand/Indonesia, etc., didn’t get near that high, and it killed tens of thousands (quicker of course).
If Barra is to the right of the eye at landfall it will get a worse wind/surge onshore flowing.
Than if it is to the left of eye, where wind/surge tend to have a slight offshore pull.
If the eye is overhead the extreme low atmospheric pressure there (AP) allows the surge to go even higher (AP acts as a ‘lid’ bearing down on the water column
DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
—————————–
SUMMARY OF 400 PM CDT…2100 UTC…INFORMATION
———————————————-
LOCATION…18.9N 105.2W
ABOUT 60 MI…95 KM W OF MANZANILLO MEXICO
ABOUT 110 MI…175 KM SSE OF CABO CORRIENTES MEXICO
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…190 MPH…305 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT…NNE OR 15 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…900 MB…26.58 INCHES
DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
——————————
At 400 PM CDT (2100 UTC), the center of Hurricane Patricia was
located near latitude 18.9 North, longitude 105.2 West. Patricia is
moving toward the north-northeast near 14 mph (22 km/h) and this motion is expected to continue with some increase in forward speed tonight and Saturday. On the forecast track, the center of Patricia should make landfall during the next several hours on the
— coast of Mexico between Manzanillo and Cabo Corrientes. —
After landfall, the center of Patricia is expected to move quickly
north-northeastward across western and northern Mexico.
Reports from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that
10Patricia has weakened a little during the past few hours and that
maximum sustained winds are near 190 mph (305 km/h) with higher gusts. Patricia is a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane through landfall. After landfall, Patricia is forecast to rapidly weaken over the mountains of Mexico.
Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km).
Oops,
Links for the NHC verbiage above:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPEP5+shtml/232059.shtml
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/?epac
11FYI:
La Manzanilla Beach Cam
http://www.lamanzanilla.info/web_cam.html
12We need to start building stocks at the high tide line everywhere we have coasts, and all up and down the Mississippi,too.
13They aren’t climate change deniers. They are fact deniers. Climate change is just a part of their denial mind set. Not until the earth literally boils under their feet will they even begin to comprehend the facts. I would think that protecting this planet for future generations would be the first and foremost “family value” to embrace. But since they don’t exhibit much understanding or support of the other “family values”, I suppose I’m not really surprised.
I hope you all won’t get tired of me saying this for the next year, but please, it’s time to demand every Dem/liberal/progressive vote. No excuses. The right is wrong — about everything. How many more examples do we need. It’s time for the sane to reign.
14Cheryl Ann says:
October 23, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Every February I go to Barra de Navidad…
Patricia’s eye has just crossed the coast a few miles to the west of Barra.
That means that almost the worst of the storm is affecting the Barra area right now. My friend is aboard a sailboat in the harbor/lagoon there, the Laguna de Barra de Navidad. Not looking good, last contact 1-2 hours ago.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/20E/imagery/rb_lalo-animated.gif
15My Dear One and I were married in Jalisco, Mexico and then set up housekeeping in San Blas on the Pacific coast just where the hurricane is predicted to hit.
I’m sending my best hopes, thoughts, wishes, for all those there.
16I pray that all heeded the evacuation warnings and come through this alive and well.
17We had to sit thru Alicia when she smacked the west end of Galveston Island and came across Seabrook, where we lived at that time. Sustained winds were only 104 mph and she was only a category 3. Familiar places and landmarks I had known since I was 5 were destroyed or altered beyond recognition.
I have wept a couple of times over the impending destruction in southern Mexico. As always, the poor will bear the brunt of the storm and pay with their lives and their children’s lives, and the rich will wail over their insurance claims and property loss. I still have to drive my truck though, so I am still part of the problem.
18At least it’s a very small hurricane, so the worst wind path is only 5-10 miles across. Best hopes for everyone there.
19Well said.
‘Thoughts are with our Texan friends as they endure the flash floods.
20Friend of mine said the line in text at beginning re: mass murder was “over the top”. Anyone want to elaborate on that? I told her I’d discuss it with her. She hasn’t replied.
21It seems that all those folks on the Pacific side of Mexico were held tight in God’s hands. So far, no reports of storm related loss of life. Lots and lots and lots of property damage. The President of Mexico told everyone in the path of the storm to boogie on out of there ASAP.
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