Re: OT: Hurricane Bertha

jonathan wrote:

The eye of Katrina went right over my house in Florida. The first
time I experienced an eye.

Katrina was a bold little wench - she sent her eye right over the
National Hurricane Center. It was a Category 1 at that point, I think,
so you fairly lucky then, although not so later in the season.

It was Wilma couple of weeks later
that still gives me the chills. ...
Andrew had an eye only 15 or 20 miles across while
at cat 5 speed, yet it caused $35 billion in damage.

Wilma was bad.

"Wilma has developed the dreaded pinhole eye," 6-7 nautical miles
across, per the NHC on October 18, 2005, at
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al242005.discus.014.shtml?
This was early in its life cycle; I had thought small eyes always
meant intense hurricanes, but on looking it up just now, it "just"
signifies rapid fluctuations, which makes a forecaster's job a real
nightmare. It was either that storm or another 2005 storm, I forget
the intensity now, but it was a major hurricane at that point, that
had a 2-nm-wide eye at one point. That set a record.

The year 2005 was not a good one for anybody in the southeast, and you
didn't always have to be directly in the hurricane's path. I remember
Rita was pretty well inland and possibly just clearing Texas and
moving into the heartland, and we got 10 tornadoes that afternoon in
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, that were attributed to Rita. I don't
really understand that because it's usually the NE quadrant of an
incoming hurricane that is at the most tornado risk (as you probably
know only too well, if you're near or on Florida's Gulf coast).

Some of our forum members, like the one who lived near Lake
Ponchetrain, definitely cleared out before Katrina came in. He
sustained a lot of damage, but was far enough inland and away from the
track to still have his house standing and in reparable condition.

Some people don't clear out because of sheer stupidity, but nowadays
with better public education, building codes, and so forth, I think
more people who get hurt or killed got blind-sided (nobody, including
the forecasters, expected the Category 5-strength storm surges along
the coast from Katrina, which had weakened 2 degrees in intensity
before coming in), or else they had a good reason to stay put (some
people on a Tolkien newsgroup I was on at the time, for instance, in
the Biloxi area who stayed because he worked at the hospital, which
was practically on the beach and did get flooded and kind of wrecked
but stayed up and running throughout, and she wouldn't leave him,
though he told her to and their house was only a couple blocks from
the hospital: I can't believe they both survived unharmed).

At least until the plumbing starts honking, at 110 mph or so, when
the vacuum gets high enough to empty the pipes, then it's time
to worry.

Another bad sign is when the sliding doors and windows on a solidly
built and well protected (and shuttered) house start to hum.

Well, anyway, in Bermuda, they're welcoming Tropical Storm Bertha now
because of the rain. That storm is still around, and still perplexing
meteorologists: it may force some of them, if not to drink, then into
a relatively easy, low-pressure job...like earthquake prediction in
Southern California (BG). Very interesting tropical cyclone, Bertha,
and doubly so because it hasn't hurt anyone or racked up huge damages
anywhere. It is apparently intensifying again, and two of the major
models predict it will become a hurricane again, though the NHC doubts
it. Time will tell.

Barb
------------
It's the radar loop at this site http://www.hurricanehunters.com/ that
still gives me heartache today. However, they also have the absolutely
BEST hurricane photo ever taken, last year in the eye of Category Five
Felix: http://www.hurricanehunters.com/images/storms/2007/2007_felix.html
.

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