Hurricane Irene

berberry · August 24, 2011, 12:57:09 PM

After the recent thread about how many highway geeks are also wx geeks I'm kinda surprised this thread hasn't already been created.

In terms of its track, this thing is looking a LOT like the infamous Long Island Express of 1938, a cat 3 that plowed through New England via Long Island that year, and was itself the first major hurricane to strike the area since a short time after the Civil War. The '38 hurricane tracked a bit farther east, enough to spare the Bahamas and Carolinas a direct hit, but other that this one looks much the same.

Anybody in the potentially affected areas getting ready for an evacuation yet? I can tell you from experience that power can go out hundreds of miles inland, and for a week or more (my place had no power for almost a full week after Katrina, and I'm 250 miles north of New Orleans). Even if you live within 400 miles, I'd say you should at least get your pantry well stocked and set aside lots of clean water.

Ian · August 24, 2011, 01:00:28 PM

Well the day this hurricane is going to hit New England is the day we leave from New Hampshire and back down to Philadelphia. Should be an interesting ride home!

berberry · August 24, 2011, 02:35:22 PM

The Weather Channel is now saying that Irene is looking more and more like it's headed for landfall in New England, possibly in Maine after a near-direct hit on Long Island.

Michael in Philly · August 24, 2011, 02:53:53 PM

The major difference between now and 1938, of course, being that then they didn't know the magnitude of what was coming.

That said, I just checked weather.com for the first time today, and they've shifted the cone of uncertainty farther east than it was yesterday; Philadelphia's (for now) toward the western side of it. Which I guess means - someone correct me if I'm wrong - we'll probably be on the weak side. Lots of rain, some wind.

hm insulators · August 24, 2011, 03:26:06 PM

Best of luck to anybody in the path of this monster!

NWI_Irish96 · August 24, 2011, 03:40:04 PM

I'm scheduled to fly into Richmond via Charlotte Sunday evening. I know neither city is exactly coastal, but is there a chance those airports will be affected?

Lightning Strike · August 24, 2011, 06:45:11 PM

Probably; Eastern Seaboard is one of the biggest hubs so it wouldn't surprise me if a domino effect happens. Looking at the current models/trend it looks like it could skirt the NJ coast and make a landfall around the Long Island area, as previously mentioned, which would definitely affect NYC/PHL which could lead to delays up and down the seaboard depending on how many flights. But models can only be taken at face value, really nothing more...better handle on the situation when its 48hrs out from landfall.

Brandon · August 24, 2011, 07:53:38 PM

Agreed about Irene looking a lot like the Long Island Express, but it also seems to be tracking like the 1944 New England Hurricane and Hurricane Bob from about 20 years ago. I think Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island need to watch this one very carefully.

Brandon · August 24, 2011, 07:55:21 PM

Quote from: Michael in Philly on August 24, 2011, 02:53:53 PM
The major difference between now and 1938, of course, being that then they didn't know the magnitude of what was coming.

That said, I just checked weather.com for the first time today, and they've shifted the cone of uncertainty farther east than it was yesterday; Philadelphia's (for now) toward the western side of it. Which I guess means - someone correct me if I'm wrong - we'll probably be on the weak side. Lots of rain, some wind.

IIRC, you are right. It's the NE quadrant that has the biggest punch. Philly should be much better off than say Providence, RI.

stormwatch7721 · August 24, 2011, 08:07:18 PM

I'm Expecting the rain and wind from Irene. Myrtle Beach is out of the projected path cone for now.

Duke87 · August 24, 2011, 08:19:37 PM

Well, I'm certainly watching...

We're planning on just hunkering down if it hits us. It'll be a hell of a storm but we're not in a low-lying area so we're not at the highest risk. Certainly, if everyone around here tried to run away from this storm, no one would get away.

We plan on going around and making sure anything the wind might kick up is tied down or put away. Power outages are something we're no stranger to so we're prepared for that already.

The biggest issue in my mind is that if the storm hits us, there's no way in hell I'm going to make it into work on Monday. And with no power I won't be working from home, either. Fortunately, there's personal time for this sort of thing...

xcellntbuy · August 24, 2011, 09:35:45 PM

Fellow south Florida residents like myself are quite pleased that Hurricane Irene has decided to spin away further to the east. Our friends in the Bahamas currently are not doing well. Let's hope this storm stays way out in the Atlantic Ocean and passes well away from the USA.

Brandon · August 24, 2011, 09:44:00 PM

Current models have Irene tracking across Long Island, and one of them is a direct hit on NYC.
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at201109_model.html?MR=1

Following the discussions, it appears that everything the NHC has east of the Rockies is being employed to get a good handle on where Irene is going. They're even launching weather balloons every 6 hours in Montana.

berberry · August 25, 2011, 01:55:59 AM

Just turned the TV back on after a couple hours, and the predicted track is looking more and more like the Long Island Express. Now, about half the models are showing it going into Long Island and then tracking straight into Connecticut.

Oddly enough, I haven't heard anyone point out these similarities on the Wx Channel. At least not yet.

Scott5114 · August 25, 2011, 09:53:16 AM

Quote from: berberry on August 25, 2011, 01:55:59 AM
Oddly enough, I haven't heard anyone point out these similarities on the Wx Channel. At least not yet.

Probably because most of their viewership has no idea what the Long Island Express was.

Alex · August 25, 2011, 04:31:31 PM

I have been following it extensively since it was Invest97L. A friend of mine runs hardcoreweather.com and I generally get all of my tropics info from there. It is crazy how a week or so ago the models had it going into the Eastern Gulf. Then as the storm developed and progressed westwards, the model shifted to SW Florida, then the GA/FL border, then the Carolinas, then eastern NC, then eastern Mass. ala Hurricane Bob and now back to eastern NC on a Hurricane Gloria type track.

1995hoo · August 25, 2011, 05:56:16 PM

We're driving down to Richmond and back on Saturday to go to a museum. Unfortunately, we had to buy tickets. Might be an interesting trip.

Michael in Philly · August 25, 2011, 06:52:48 PM

I'm starting to think it might be a nice weekend to go to, say, Cleveland....

Brandon · August 25, 2011, 08:13:10 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 25, 2011, 09:53:16 AM
Quote from: berberry on August 25, 2011, 01:55:59 AM
Oddly enough, I haven't heard anyone point out these similarities on the Wx Channel. At least not yet.

Probably because most of their viewership has no idea what the Long Island Express was.

Most folks don't look at their own local history. Of course, if it happened before the boomers were born, it doesn't really matter.

Alps · August 25, 2011, 09:46:29 PM

I'm heading east to Boston.

(But WHY??)

Well, saying goodbye to a friend who's moving from there, and then, on Sunday, I either want to be far west or right smack in Boston. (Top winds are well under 50 mph.) Anything between Boston and NJ is going to be a mess until after midnight. So wherever I stay, may as well stay til the wee hours of Monday, so doesn't really matter. So Boston it is.

Alex · August 25, 2011, 09:49:10 PM

The entire state of Delaware is under a hurricane watch. Might be a wild weekend for a place unaccustomed to such a storm. Hurricane Gloria in 1985 was the last to have a type of impact they are forecasting. I remember that one well as everything in Wilmington was shut down. We even got out of school that day (9-27).

berberry · August 25, 2011, 10:11:44 PM

Quote from: Brandon on August 25, 2011, 08:13:10 PM
Most folks don't look at their own local history.

No, they don't; good point. But the Wx Channel used to make more historical references than they do now; maybe they did some research and found it to be a tune-out factor. But I remember the '04 and '05 seasons when Florida kept getting hammered by one tropical system after another, and it wasn't uncommon for the Wx anchors to make comparisons to historical storms like the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, or the Lake Okechobee (sp?) storm of about a decade earlier.

Back to the current storm, they're saying Irene is over 400 miles wide. That's very bad news if it remains strong. Katrina, another very wide storm, caused extensive damage across very wide swaths of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, hundreds of miles inland. Irene doesn't look like it will be as strong as Katrina, which should be good news for folks inland, but it might not matter much along the NE coastal areas. The geographic differences between the coasts up there and the ones down here are, from what I hear, enough to make a cat 1 up there look like a 2 or 3 down here.

I dunno if that's true or not, but it's what they're saying on the teevee.

golden eagle · August 25, 2011, 10:21:08 PM

Quote from: cabiness42 on August 24, 2011, 03:40:04 PM
I'm scheduled to fly into Richmond via Charlotte Sunday evening. I know neither city is exactly coastal, but is there a chance those airports will be affected?

My guess is that you might be OK with Charlotte, as it's farther away from the projected path. Richmond? I guess it depends on how close Irene gets to the capitol city.

elsmere241 · August 26, 2011, 08:50:42 AM

Quote from: Alex on August 25, 2011, 09:49:10 PM
The entire state of Delaware is under a hurricane watch. Might be a wild weekend for a place unaccustomed to such a storm. Hurricane Gloria in 1985 was the last to have a type of impact they are forecasting. I remember that one well as everything in Wilmington was shut down. We even got out of school that day (9-27).

It's a warning now. I remember getting off for Gloria - my mother had to drive from Newark to Strasburg to get my father since he couldn't fly in to Philadelphia, and that's as far as the shuttle would go from Harrisburg.

berberry · August 26, 2011, 12:20:37 PM

Wonder why none of the cable news / weather channels are talking about the dams and levees in the affected areas? Are there any structures that are vulnerable to the type of failure we saw in New Orleans?

One anecdote I remember hearing about - I think - the '38 hurricane concerned a beaver dam in New Jersey that under ordinary circumstances would have been a nuisance, but as it happened saved the lives of a lot of folks by protecting a heavily-populated area from flooding. Apparently, the beavers worked like little soldiers right through the blow, keeping their dam in place.

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Hurricane Irene