US (and other places) Hurricane season

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

It's very belated I know, I've been discussing the various hurricanes in another thread in the time I have recently, but anyway, better late than never. From t'other thread:

www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/054806.shtml?cone#contents Irma at the moment looks like it's going to slide into the Gulf of Mexico, grazing the west side of Florida. However, the GFS model has it turning earlier, so there is some uncertainty still. (as there often is)

Jose is expected to become a Hurricane over night tonight, but I don't think it will be as major as Irma due to outflow from Irma effectively choking it. However, depending on the path it takes it could still compound misery.

I'm more worried about the various Islands that Irma is traveling over rather than the potential for a US landfall, simply because they have the means to evacuate and more resources. They are going to be completely devastated. Though Branson is riding Irma out on Necker Island.

good night. sleep well.

I hope everyone in Marco stayed safe.

I'm upstairs now and can't get CNN, have they had a storm surge in Naples? TJ over on ABC very pleasant on the eye though .

Stubborn, exactly that too. Possibly because we live on an estuary and spend all our time on the adjoining beach we are very water safety clued up, even DS3 said "I would NEVER go onto the beach if the water was gone when the tide was supposed to be there". Can't believe people who live by the sea would be so clueless to the danger or have no basic sense of survival. Although our school run is tide dependent so possibly my children are more clued up than most.

Night OYBBK, thanks for the thread, it's been lovely to hang in the company of other weather obsessives enthusiasts.

See you tomorrow, reckon things will be rather soggy in the morning.

Morning all. Irma has dropped to a Cat 1 now. Thankfully Tampa was spared the worst due to the position and the strength.

You're welcome MrSlant, will be keeping an eye on Jose which may hit the eastern sea board in around 5 days time - or may not!

Jose update weakening and gong to go for a little wander around the Atlantic.

While things start to calm down, do we have Lee forming out in the east?
Noaa outlook

They haven't had high tide at Tampa yet have they OYBBK?

Not yet Nocrying, expected around 11am our time.

the slightly more windy weather we have today, is that related to the hurricanes?

Not at all Purple, just normal atlantic low pressures. Bit early in the season to be so blowy. I've started a warnings thread.

Reports are patchy about what has happened in Florida so far. Overall a lot less damage than feared.

10000 believed to have ignored the mandatory evacuation in Florida Keys. Despite reports it seems that all the bridges did survive but need to be tested for safety and are currently impassible.

Key West relatively ok. Locals expected damage to be wise. The hurricane hit around Sugar Loaf Key and the worse damage seems to be around Islamorada, Big Pine, Cudjoe and Marathon in the middle keys. This is because they were exposed to worst part of the eye wall, are lower lying and experienced a bigger storm surge.

Naples got hit by a surge which peaked at around 5ft above normal levels and is still there. This is bad not nearly as bad as the possible max of 10-15 ft.

Miami seems to have unexpectedly been hit harder than thought. 2 cranes down.

That all tallies with the info I've seen Red. It's fantastic that it was all less than feared. Really good. However it does now feed into the narrative of it was all over hyped. It wasn't, we saw what happened over all the Islands, that could have been parts of Florida but for a tiny change in direction which took it over Cuba.

Miami was fascinating, it did get hit worse than expected. I suspect there will be a fair bit of analysis about whether it was a meteorological phenomenon or whether it was to do with city design.

Did anyone see the awesome Sara Sidner on CNN, clinging to a fifth floor balcony and reporting the weather during the hurricane force gusts, while almost being blown into oblivion?

Agree OYBBK.

There was a bullet dodged there particularly for Tampa but it could also cost lives for the 'next time' especially if the next time is sooner rather than later.

People simply can't afford to just evacuate multiple times either.

Equally they could not take the chance with Irma. Too much of a risk for a great many reasons. It had the potential to be 'the big one'.

The Big One will come eventually.

I didn't see that Hel!

Red I was reading a discussion amongst friends that if the hurricane ended up not being too bad in their area then they would be disciplined if they didn't make it into work the next day - never mind that they had all been told to get out of Dodge and would find it difficult to get back in.

Not being reported much but sounds like there are hundreds of British tourists in Varadero, Cuba who have been without access to drinking water for 24hrs.

Thomas Cook are saying no flights until tomorrow.

Unfortunately Florida's fortune was at Cuba's expense and this isn't getting reported due to the timing of it being just before Florida.

I expect more to come out from Cuba over the next day or so.

There are some horrendous photos coming out of Cuba now. You are right, they've been completely overlooked.

This isn't getting reported due to the timing of it being just before Florida.

I suspect it is also being kept quiet by the Cuban government, who don't want bad publicity. Things are very controlled there, they don't have a free press.

That's true too amaliaa - a pity, I suspect they could do with some help.

Still no reply from Holguìn, no idea if friend rode it out there or evacuated (which may add a bit more time on til we get a response)

"Unfortunately Florida's fortune was at Cuba's expense and this isn't getting reported due to the timing of it being just before Florida."

I don't really have words for how angry this makes me. So I'll just go with an emoji...

Cuban government made an announcement that 10 people died from the hurricane

It was a hurricane, it didn't really pick and choose where it went to make one place it landed more 'fortunate' than the other. Cuba is not being 'overlooked', its government doesn't allow unfettered access to it to journalists and communications are probably severely affected.

Not used to people getting grumpy with semantics on the weather threads

You are right Expat in that reporting will be restricted due to Cubas government. But to be fair Mexicos earthquake which was truly devastating was also fairly well ignored amongst all of the hurricane news.

Plus yesterday was a Sunday, there were reporters through Florida, so it made it a very easy news story that people could follow the progress of second by second. It's part of the way 24 hour news works I think. In the past we would have heard on the 6pm news how Hurricane Irma went through many countries causing devastation in its wake, then it would have been on to the next news item.

Anyway, still keeping an eye on the next Tropical disturbance. At the moment it is pegged at a less than 30% chance of developing. Let's hope it peters out,