KSC and Hurricane Matthew

[_Augustus_]

Just now, Kerbart said:

Cold front, coriolis effect. There was one a couple of years ago that struck florida and then made a u-turn and struck havoc in the gulf of mexico. It's not unheard of for that to happen.

I just find it odd that it's doing that. I hope my grandma in Wilmington NC is okay.

 

[Kerbart]

Just now, _Augustus_ said:

I just find it odd that it's doing that. I hope my grandma in Wilmington NC is okay.

 

I don't think you have to worry about that, most forecasts project the path to stay south of Charleston. There will be rain of course, and wind, but very likely nothing disastrous.

[Just Jim]

13 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

I just find it odd that it's doing that. I hope my grandma in Wilmington NC is okay.

I heard they're really preparing in NC, so hopefully she'll be OK.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Just Jim

[DerekL1963]

13 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Why are they saying it'll loop around instead of coming up the East Coast? I've never heard of a hurricane like that.

They're not saying it *will* loop, they're saying it *might* loop - though that's unlikely.  Either way, it's so far in the future (Sun-Tues) that the models are unreliable.

[Just Jim]

15 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Cold front, coriolis effect. There was one a couple of years ago that struck florida and then made a u-turn and struck havoc in the gulf of mexico. It's not unheard of for that to happen. However it's extremely unlikely to happen in this case.

So true... hurricanes are so weird. I won't be at all surprised if this one doubles back... I hope it doesn't, but I won't be surprised it it did. Hurricanes are like that.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Just Jim

[tater]

10 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Yes, the people who lost their homes will absolutely agree with the fact that these were not hurricanes. Not even storms, one can argue. Merely a brisk breeze, no?

Just like the Karman line determines whose awesome flight counts as "spaceflight," if a storm doesn't meet certain criteria, it's not a hurricane. That doesn't mean it's not a storm (in the case of a cyclonic storm, it might be a tropical storm, or a tropical depression). You can dislike that, but it's simply a fact. 99.9km is not a flight to space, and Sandy wasn't a hurricane (at landfall, which is what counts), so stop with the straw man (you are intentionally misstating my argument---and there is nothing at all to argue, I don't define hurricanes).

NOAA also categorizes cat 3+ as "major." Is it arbitrary? Sure, but I didn't make it up, NOAA did. Apparently damage for non-major hurricanes tends to be substantially lower, so the level matters in terms of which ones are worse. Again, don't like it? Take it up with NOAA. Look at the NHC/NOAA image up thread. M is "Major Hurricane," H is "Hurricane," and S is "Tropical Storm." Should a D appear that's a tropical depression.

Edited October 7, 2016 by tater

[DerekL1963]

It's just after 5AM EDT - and according to Weather Underground there's a 3 ft storm surge at Cape Canaveral, but it's currently low tide.  High tides currently are running +3 from low tide...  so it'll get higher for the next couple of hours until the eye passes the Cape.  I can't get a good read on the wind...

[tater]

So it's not going to make landfall in FL Maybe not make US landfall at all. The plus is less eyewall wind, the downside of not making landfall is that were it to do so, it would disintegrate as a coherent storm very quickly instead of insane rains all up the coast. Weird storm.

Edited October 7, 2016 by tater
autocorrect changed eyewall to eyeball, lol

[ProtoJeb21]

10 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

Why are they saying it'll loop around instead of coming up the East Coast? I've never heard of a hurricane like that.

*cough* Tropical Storm Julia *cough*

[tater]

Wonder if it has to do with Hurricane Nicole, which is ~ESE (in the middle of nowhere) of Matthew right now? Big, low pressure pulling it East?

Edited October 7, 2016 by tater

[_Augustus_]

16 minutes ago, tater said:

Wonder if it has to do with Hurricane Nicole, which is ~ESE (in the middle of nowhere) of MATTHEW right now? Big, low pressure pulling it East?

It does, somewhat. But Nicole is tiny.

[tater]

Yeah, tiny and moving South, too... it also has an odd track. Bottom line is that someplace in the SE is getting spared a direct hit, and is getting just the west side of a hurricane that seems particularly weak on the West side (I know that is generally the case, but this one seems more so than usual.

[ProtoJeb21]

Hurricane Nicole (now back to a tropical storm) is between 105 and 80 miles in diameter and will move generally south over the next 24-48 hours. It will then curve northwards, re-strengthen, and possibly hit Bermunda. With this in mind, it's hard to determine whether or not Nicole is changing Matthew's path. Either way, I'm worried about the death toll for Hurricane Matthew. It went from 28 to 578 in just 36 hours, and it's still rising! I'm also concerned about the possibility of Matthew going into the Gulf of Mexico.

On the bright side, it doesn't seem to be strong enough to destroy any KSC buildings!

[tater]

There was a study regarding tornado warnings that found that even in places like Oklahoma where tornados are common, most people refuse to take shelter until they can actually see the tornado. You're supposed to take shelter as soon as the warning is given, and doing that really saves lives. So many people see hurricanes that miss (like Matthew), or others that hit but don't do the deadly damage breathlessly predicted on the news, then next time don't take warnings seriously (like people who elected to ride out Katrina) and put themselves in grave danger. Better safe than sorry, you really never know with these storms, and even a regular (not major) hurricane can hurt or kill people.

I really hope this thing evaporates and doesn't head into the Gulf, the last thing New Orleans (or Mississippi) needs is another hurricane, even after 10+ years.

Edited October 7, 2016 by tater

[todofwar]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

There was a study regarding tornado warnings that found that even in places like Oklahoma where tornados are common, most people refuse to take shelter until they can actually see the tornado. You're supposed to take shelter as soon as the warning is given, and doing that really saves lives. So many people see hurricanes that miss (like Michael), or others that hit but don't do the deadly damage breathlessly predicted on the news, then next time don't take warnings seriously (like people who elected to ride out Katrina) and put themselves in grave danger. Better safe than sorry, you really never know with these storms, and even a regular (not major) hurricane can hurt or kill people.

I really hope this thing evaporates and doesn't head into the Gulf, the last thing New Orleans (or Mississippi) needs is another hurricane, even after 10+ years.

Ok, this hurricane has taught me either Matthew gets auto corrected to Michael allot or people think Matthew sounds like Michael. 

Back to the storm itself, it also comes from a sense of toughness. People have the attitude "I survived [hurricane name] and that was stronger than this!" without realizing they didn't actually feel those strong winds at the time. I technically survived Andrew which was a cat 5, but I was well north of the eye and probably got close to cat 3 winds. And those still came within a hairs breadth of ripping the roof off. Down where it was a cat 5, it looked like a nuke went off. 

[tater]

No, for some reason I have been typing michael by mistake (perhaps because it is my cousin's name). Matthew. 

Any of you in or from hurricane country can answer this: it seems like the only people in really grave risk are those in areas where storm surge is a real threat. Seems like people evacuating from inland can cause more problems than they need to traffic wise.

EDIT: cat 5 is another animal altogether, even inland those things are nasty. It's like tornados, the strong ones literally rip the grass off the ground, and leave nothing in their wake.

Edited October 7, 2016 by tater

[razark]

27 minutes ago, tater said:

Seems like people evacuating from inland can cause more problems than they need to traffic wise.

Indeed.  I was in the Rita evacuation in '05, and it was hell.  Made it across the city in about 16 hours before giving up.  Fortunately for us, Rita hit farther to the east.  A lot of people were worried after Katrina (even though what happened to New Orleans couldn't really happen to Houston), and people in areas that were farther inland were clogging the people from the coast. 

Ike, on the other hand, may not have been "major", but it was enough for us to end up living with my mother-in-law for a few months.  We missed the eye of that one by a few miles.

[DerekL1963]

From the KSC twitter feed:
 

And looking at the tide cycle and the storm surge reports, they probably dodged that bullet.

[razark]

2 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

And looking at the tide cycle and the storm surge reports, they probably dodged that bullet.

I hope all their people are safe and power and water can quickly be restored.  After Ike, I was without power for a week, and JSC was shut down for a week while they did extensive cleanup and tree removal.

[Ten Key]

48 minutes ago, tater said:

Any of you in or from hurricane country can answer this: it seems like the only people in really grave risk are those in areas where storm surge is a real threat. Seems like people evacuating from inland can cause more problems than they need to traffic wise.

Born and raised in Florida here. 

There are a lot of mobile and/or manufactured homes in Florida that simply cannot stand up to a storm of any strength. Even where storm surge is not a threat, winds can be high enough to threaten those structures. Sustained rain fall from a slow moving system can cause dangerous flooding far inland. And there's always a risk the storm might strengthen suddenly, like Hurricane Charley did in 2004. 

I remember Hurricane Elena in 1985. . .the winds were strong enough in central Florida to where you could lean into it at a pretty good angle and not fall over. And the thing never did make landfall.

Beyond the initial storm damage, there's the problem of infrastructure-- power, water, food, medicine. A storm that big can knock out a lot of stuff for a long while over a wide area, including emergency services. It's usually easier to evacuate people ahead of time rather than have them run out of food and water three days after the storm has passed. 

[todofwar]

39 minutes ago, tater said:

No, for some reason I have been typing michael by mistake (perhaps because it is my cousin's name). Matthew. 

Any of you in or from hurricane country can answer this: it seems like the only people in really grave risk are those in areas where storm surge is a real threat. Seems like people evacuating from inland can cause more problems than they need to traffic wise.

EDIT: cat 5 is another animal altogether, even inland those things are nasty. It's like tornados, the strong ones literally rip the grass off the ground, and leave nothing in their wake.

Yeah, I was never once evacuated because I lived inland enough. Category 3 or 4 can definitely tear a roof off a house, and if you're in a trailer park you need to get to a hurricane shelter for sure. So it really depends. If it's strong enough, it's better to not be in the direct path of the storm regardless of how close you are. But if it's a cat 2 or even 3, inland people are better off not clogging evacuation routes I would say. 

[Ten Key]

12 minutes ago, todofwar said:

But if it's a cat 2 or even 3, inland people are better off not clogging evacuation routes I would say. 

Allison killed 23 people in Texas in 2001, and it was "only" a tropical storm. If emergency management tells you to go, you go, absent a very good reason.

When I was in the second grade, my teacher was involved in a car wreck. The SUV she was riding in rolled over five times and the roof collapsed. She was not wearing her seat belt and was thrown through the windshield, and that kept her from being crushed and killed by the roof. In that instance, her seat belt would have killed her. But that one instance doesn't mean it's smart to not wear your seat belt.

The Rita evacuations were a mess, but that's not the norm and ignoring evacuation orders is rarely a good idea.

[tater]

I wasn't thinking in terms of ignoring evac orders, more along the lines of very curated evac orders to make sure coastal people get out without facing insane traffic. 

[razark]

21 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

Allison killed 23 people in Texas in 2001, and it was "only" a tropical storm.

The problem with Allison was that she hit twice.  She hit once, dropped a lot of rain, headed up north of Houston, looped and hit the already saturated city again.

 

 

9 minutes ago, tater said:

I wasn't thinking in terms of ignoring evac orders, more along the lines of very curated evac orders to make sure coastal people get out without facing insane traffic. 

When Ike hit in '08, they were very explicit in "If you live in zone A, get out.  Zone B, we advise you to get out. Zone C, stay put!"  They were also block C's access to the evacuation routes until enough people from A/B had gotten out.  I hear it went much better than Rita. 

We stayed at the mother-in-laws in B.  Our house was in A, and the water got up to the doorstop.  No major flooding inside, but several broken windows, siding ripped off, and a landlord that didn't care lead to us having to leave.

Edited October 7, 2016 by razark

[DerekL1963]

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