Getting Hurricane Season Off to a Roaring Start
OK, folks, for those of us who live along the Gulf Coast, here we go – the National Hurricane Center has called for the depression in the Gulf to become Tropical Storm Cindy and it’s forecast to come ashore Thursday morning around Sabine Pass. If memory serves, this is about where Rita came ashore in 2005. Houston is on the clean side so far, Lake Charles, not so much. Be safe out there.
Damn, Rita took my power out for three days in NW La. Wife still there and I’m working in Arlington. Hope the outcome is better this time.
1With the present dysfunctional government, this is a true test of “thoughts and prayers”. I hope it doesn’t get too bad. I’m not much for prayers as a solution, but I will be hoping you come through it okay.
2NOAA, to date has no manager to lead. And the Rump wants to decrease FEMA funding. Not good for those with a hurricane coming at them.
3I forgot to add, or a tornado or three.
4In the Gospel according to Jimmy B, there’s no Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season! One should just go to Paris and ride it out.
5As a WXnut and mariner, been watching it for days.
TD-3 (PTC 3/03L in the latest NOAA jargon) looks like it won’t be too strong of a storm, likely tracking near the LA-TX border.
But then it tracks up LA to AR,TN, KY, WV, where it will probably unleash some dawgawful heavy rains, with severe flooding conditions in many places.
Take care y’all.
My homeport area of Corpus-Rockport still shows a 4% probability of low end TS winds, so it’s batten down the hatches.
We need to keep an eye on TS Bret too, down in the Caribbean currently raking the ABC’s. It is progged to head more for Honduras in a weakened (sheared) state, but ‘things change’ sometimes. Should it drift a bit more northerly, it could cross the Yucatan sort of like PTC 3 did, and wind up in the GOM too; and more likely with a greater westering course component, which would track towards TX.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/?atlc
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/143828.shtml?cone#contents
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIAPWSAT3+shtml/143828.shtml
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/imagery/gmex.html
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters.html
6These are early storms, and Bret is in an unusual location. Previous patterns may no longer apply. I’d love to have one roar right up Donnie’s jacksie to reinforce the idea that the climate really is changing. In the meantime, keep an eye out and don’t think that history is a reliable guide.
7No FEMA Director and no NOAA Director at the start of hurricane season, not that anyone Trump would appoint would be even remotely competent but still.
8Stay safe ya’all!
Does “Hurricane Donald” put fear in you’d hearts? It does for me, and I live in Washington State!
9Sandridge, my late husband worked for NOAA for many years. It is doggone near delightful to hear your jargon! He was born and raised in hurricane country and left as soon as he could. He had some sort of notion that one day The Big One would hit and the world would fall apart. And it did when the levee broke in New Orleans as Katrina trailed off. Its still amazing to me to think how prescient he was!
10Well hell, PTC 3TD-3/03L is now Tropical Storm Cindy, as of 1PM CDT. She’s gone stationary, but expected to resume previous course without much strengthening.
Y’all in most parts of Texas may have noticed a slight windshift, to a ~NE wind. This is due to the influence of Cindy (which is still ~600 miles from me). My weather station anemometer actually picked it up beginning yesterday morning.
Most of us in Texas should be on the dry side of Cindy, and it’s going to get hellaciously HOT here (as if it hasn’t already been so). Maybe we should head upcountry to Arizony, eh? oh…wait…
No such thing as ‘global warming/climate change though. Although I’ve never heard of mass airline flight cancellations, like at PHX, due to air density, et al., problems before.
SUMMARY OF 100 PM CDT…1800 UTC…INFORMATION
———————————————-
LOCATION…25.9N 90.5W
ABOUT 265 MI…430 KM S OF MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA
ABOUT 355 MI…565 KM SE OF GALVESTON TEXAS
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…45 MPH…75 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT…STATIONARY
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…999 MB…29.50 INCHES
DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
——————————
Satellite imagery, aircraft data, and surface observations indicate that the low pressure system in the central Gulf of Mexico has acquired a well-defined center, and is now Tropical Storm Cindy, the third tropical storm of 2017.
At 100 PM CDT (1800 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Cindy was centered near latitude 25.9 North, longitude 90.5 West. Cindy has been stationary for the past few hours, but the system is expected to resume a motion toward the northwest at around 10 mph (17 km/h) later today, and this motion is expected to continue through Wednesday night. A turn toward the north-northwest is forecast early Thursday. On the forecast track, Cindy is expected to approach the coast of southwest Louisiana late Wednesday or Wednesday night, and move inland over western Louisiana and eastern Texas on Thursday.
11Maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph (75 km/h) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast before the system reaches the coast on Thursday.
maggie, Mahalo. I have great respect for the NOAA nerds (and all the other similar agencies), they do a great job in sometimes trying circumstances.
Some of the best, or perhaps the best, use of our tax dollars there are.
Now the damned Repukes are trying to hamstring them too (more than usual).
You probably even remember when that ‘Puke fmr Sen. Santorum tried to partially ‘privatize’ them, hide the freely available WX data from the public, and let his major donor, a certain commercial weather channel, have preferential access and control of that valuable data.
I’m so bad that I’ve taken my kids to two WFO centers for opening open house dealies (years ago, BRO and EWX). I actually tone the ‘jargon’ way down, or few would understand it (even on some WX sites, some get confused if I go fullNOAA :] ).
12Deb, there must be an event planner somewhere who’d love to run FEMA.
13At 5:30 p.m. our H.E.B. grocery store was packed. Very little bottle water left. To folks who haven’t dealt with this before, this probably seems alarmist. But a lot of us remember Humberto in ’07. I went to work that night expecting it to make landfall while I was at work as a tropical storm with winds in the 40 to 50 m.p. h. Range. As the night progressed we listened on the radio as it strengthened into a hurricane in just a few hours. I drove home through the beginning of it at about 1:00 a.m. to wake everyone up and secure patio furniture and whatnot. We came out that one fine. Rita? Notsamuch.
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