Tropical cyclone tracking thread

[Desert Man]

And closer to home, Tropical storm Paine..."it's a pain"! x-D expect heavy rain to fall tonight and tomorrow in southern CA, esp the mountainous areas and high risk of wildfires from dry lightning. The last Tropical storm/depression to reach the southwest was Newton last week, dumped significant amounts of rainfall in southern Arizona.

[DeaconG]

Well folks, Matthew and it's tag along Nicole is making a lot of people in Brevard County nervous. Right now the weather's clear and it's expected to be clear for most of the day...but after Wednesday night, it's going to start going downhill fast. Projected tracks take the Cat 4 hurricane between 50 and 100 miles off the Brevard County coast by 2 PM Friday afternoon.

Mandatory evacuations of the barrier islands from Port Canaveral down to Melbourne Beach and including Merritt Island start at 3 PM Wednesday.

From where I am (Port St. John) the winds are expected to be between 55 and 75 miles an hour with gusts up to 84 miles an hour (I'm about 19 miles off the coast). Repeat of Floyd in 1999, which had high winds but also had little rainfall, the projections I've seen from the NWC graphic forecast projections suggest the same thing.
Still, we're holding onto our nads ladies and gentlemen...

[jeffandnicole]

Other than wrecking lives and causing a mess in the southern US, Matthew has been a cool storm in how it's already been acting, and its latest projections just continue that oddity.

I'm heading down to Punta Cana in a few weeks and a lot of other travelers have been nervous about going, although the storm never was anywhere close to the region. They did get some rain yesterday from an very outlying band, but little wind.

My better half, Nicole, is just spinning out in the Atlantic.  It looked like she was on a path to Bermuda to cause havoc there, which sounds like Nicole because she didn't especially care for the island, but now it just kinda seems like it'll just hang out for a while in the Atlantic.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I was about to mention Matthew. It was the first category 5 Atlantic hurricane in nine years (Last one was Felix back in 2007). Now category 4... and it's going to be interesting. After hitting Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba it is headed for the East Coast.

[US 41]

It looks like there might be a developing tropical storm right behind Matthew.

[1995hoo]

My sister-in-law lives in Brevard County and is leaving tomorrow, "but not too early." She made a big deal about how she's taking her mobile phone with her. 

[ET21]

It looks like there might be a developing tropical storm right behind Matthew.

You sure it's not Nicole? I see a disturbance just east of the Lesser Antilles. What I'm more worried about is the ensembles going with this loop track. Florida could get a double blow of a cat 2 or 3 hurricane

[US 41]

It looks like there might be a developing tropical storm right behind Matthew.

You sure it's not Nicole? I see a disturbance just east of the Lesser Antilles. What I'm more worried about is the ensembles going with this loop track. Florida could get a double blow of a cat 2 or 3 hurricane

You're right. It is Nicole.

[Alex]

It seemed like there was extra traffic on I-75 north of Florida's Turnpike and on I-10 west through to Mariana. There's an unfolded "Shelter" sign on I-10 westbound in Santa Rosa too.

SC shifted I-26 to contraflow northwest to I-77 today as well.

[US 41]

*as of 10/6 at 7:30 PM

[oscar]

SC shifted I-26 to contraflow northwest to I-77 today as well.

I was there yesterday, after the contraflow started. Weird thing was, I was on I-95 seeking to turn inland on I-26, but all the ramps in both directions (including to westbound I-26) were closed, with no signage for an alternate route onto I-26 or to Columbia. I don't know why the ramps to WB I-26 from I-95 were closed, other than perhaps to keep I-26 traffic out of Charleston moving freely (no congestion at that point, in either the rgular WB lanes or the contraflowed EB lanes) and steer I-95 traffic to use other evacuation routes instead.

I did continue south to US 178, where I turned west with no trouble, and used that and US 601 to get on I-26 in Orangeburg. No congestion on 178 westbound, but EB was a little heavy with traffic detoured from I-26.

Before then, I took US 701 to Georgetown (clinching that route, just in the nick of time), then turned inland on US 521 to I-95. On US 521 late yesterday afternoon, I passed a roadblock stopping traffic heading toward the coast.

[jwolfer]

Florida did not have contraflow on i10 out of Jacksonville which surprised me .. But there were not a lot of problems except right west of 295..  I think if it was a direct hit with more storm surge and flooding predicted it would have happened. I wanted to see the logistics of it

I found it interesting that those who took the contraflow lanes were all in no option to exit until Columbia. I would think that would make people want to avoid using those lanes.

LGMS428

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Not every year one sees a hurricane making its way from the Atlantic (or more precisely the Caribbean) across Central America and into the Eastern Pacific like hurricane Otto (latest Caribbean hurricane on record) is doing now. Last time it happened was in 1996 with hurricane Cesar Douglas (note that now every tropical cyclone in the world will keep a single name through its lifetime).

[TravelingBethelite]

Tropical Storm Harvey is rapidly intensifying and is now projected to be a major hurricane upon landfall in southeast Texas.

[ET21]

That satellite imagery 

[US71]

Is Elwood with him?

[paulthemapguy]

Harvey is actually insane...This is the fastest intensification of a storm I have seen in years.  I fear for the worst when it comes to rainfall, due to the fact that it's scheduled to drift over the same spot for at least a few days.  This situation just got so much more threatening in such a short amount of time.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

^^ You missed hurricane Patricia? That was rapid intensification.

Anyway, the Southern hemisphere season turned to be dull, but got some late storms in the South Pacific. We also got typhoon Noru, the third longest-lived typhoon since records began, and the longest-lived with the current naming lists and also to have gone untracked by the Philippines' PAGASA (and thus not receiving a local name in the Philippines). During the time Noru was active, the next six names were used. Now we are with Harvey, which actually formed to the East of the Windward Islands and then dissipated in the Caribbean, but has reformed.

[US71]

Harvey is actually insane...This is the fastest intensification of a storm I have seen in years.  I fear for the worst when it comes to rainfall, due to the fact that it's scheduled to drift over the same spot for at least a few days.  This situation just got so much more threatening in such a short amount of time.

NOAA is predicting Level 3. They've also said if you need to move to safety, do it TODAY!

[ET21]

3-5 feet of rain possible for the Texas Coast as this thing will only to Houston by Wed! Hope they own a boat

[cjk374]

Harvey just upgraded to cat 4. This is not good. We are being told to get our gas tanks filled before prices spike. It is said that one third of the nation's refineries will be negatively affected by Harvey.

[US71]

Harvey just upgraded to cat 4. This is not good. We are being told to get our gas tanks filled before prices spike. It is said that one third of the nation's refineries will be negatively affected by Harvey.

I gassed up this afternoon and there was a line waiting.

[US 89]

And Harvey makes landfall as a Category 4 with 130 mph winds. It's the first major hurricane landfall in the US since Wilma 2005, and the first US category 4 landfall since Charley 2004.

[Desert Man]

Harvey was the strongest hurricane to hit the US in over a decade...since Wilma in FL 12 years ago and Katrina in New Orleans and Miss. gulf coast the same year (Aug 2005). This hurricane season, 3 tropical storms came and gone: Louisiana was hit by Cindy, Florida by Emily and off the Carolinas was Gert which didn't have landfall. Halfway through this - brace yourself, Harvey won't be the only category 3 or 4 storm (the first in Tex. since 1961).

[ET21]

There are sections of Houston that honestly may never recover from this....