Here comes Isabel!

[John Roberts]

I am going out to buy plywood folks, all of you on the east coast should start getting ready before the frenzy hits.

Here she is......

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh2.html

 

[Owlz]

I am going out to buy plywood folks, all of you on the east coast should start getting ready before the frenzy hits.

Here she is......

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh2.html

I think the Northeast is fairly safe from this particular bitch of a hurricane, but the Southeast & Mid-Atlantic states? Yeah...board those windows up NOW!

What I don't understand is: I thought Category 5 was sustained windspeeds of 174 MPH.

 

[FlaminLeviathan]

Isabel looks gorgeous I love hurricanes/twisers/tornados

 

[knightshadow]

Isabel looks gorgeous I love hurricanes/twisers/tornados

let me guess....you don't live on the East Coast ....do you.....

 

[knightshadow]

Re: Re: Here comes Isabel!

I think the Northeast is fairly safe from this particular bitch of a hurricane, but the Southeast & Mid-Atlantic states? Yeah...board those windows up NOW!

What I don't understand is: I thought Category 5 was sustained windspeeds of 174 MPH.

Nope....sustained winds of 155 or greater.......and being in New England....I never trust Mother Nature......

 

[FlaminLeviathan]

let me guess....you don't live on the East Coast ....do you.....

Nope. No valcanos/twisters/earthquakes or monsoons over here. Pretty quiet

Goodluck and hopefully no damage will be caused

 

[John Roberts]

I hope all the ships are getting out of the way safetly.
Hurricanes are scary things out at sea, the sea becomes a mass of foam from the wind and the seas hiding the actual waves, much like a snow blizzard making steerage difficult if not impossible.

I have stood and watched a few category 1 hurricanes and the effect of some wind gusts up to 135 and the thought of 160mph sustained winds with gusts to over 200 frightens the hell out of me.

Got my plywood now I have to go look for hardware to secure the hurricane shutters. When the windows go, the roof follows shortly........Aren't I aglow with postive thought.

 

[John Roberts]

It is interesting......it is almost 6PM here in Florida and where the storm is you can see that the sun is setting......you can actually see the towering wall cloud around the eye catching the setting sun.

 

[FlaminLeviathan]

Sounds pretty cool. I wish you were able to take a pic and post it here

Ab

 

[tonitits]

Good luck and be careful. Hope that noone gets hurt. These acts of nature are amazing and beautiful in one way, yet so destructive. Here in N. Tx we don't get the hurricanes but we do get tornados and like someone said earlier they are cool in a way but like I said here, they can be soooo treacherous.

 

[John Roberts]

Sounds pretty cool. I wish you were able to take a pic and post it here

Ab

I think if you click on the link above you will get the current picture posted on the NOAA site.....it changes. Like now at 10:17PM EST....you will see nothing because it is night....but if you click on this link tomorrow you will see it in all it's glory....today they clocked the sustained winds at 170 miles per hour with the Hurricane hunter that flew through the storm.......the barometric pressure was at 920.....2mb lower than Andrew when it hit south Florida a few years ago. Andrew was 922.

Here is the link again.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh2.html

 

[John Roberts]

Good luck and be careful. Hope that noone gets hurt. These acts of nature are amazing and beautiful in one way, yet so destructive. Here in N. Tx we don't get the hurricanes but we do get tornados and like someone said earlier they are cool in a way but like I said here, they can be soooo treacherous.

Hi Toni!,
Thanks for the luck, I am wary about wishing this storm away from as I do not want it to hit anyone else as well.....hopefully it will head to open sea.

My mother when questioned by her Carolina relatives about how she felt about Hugo threatening Florida some years ago glibly said...."Oh its not going to hit Florida, it is going to hit the Carolinas!" and it did.....she has felt guilt ever since.

 

[Mogwai7]

[Removed]

 

[Wideopen]

I grew up in MS and went home from school at least 3 times a year b/c of tornadoes. I live in Atlanta now and we'll get some rain, but nothing serious -- unless tornadoes spin off of the storm which is likely. I'm fascinated by mother nature, but she also scares the hell out of me. Tornadoes are NASTY! If you live in the UK and think harsh weather is entertaining, I invite you to buy a plane ticket to the Eastern seaboard of the US for a hurricane or to the US heartland in the spring or fall! You just may change your mind! Mother Nature is the ULTIMATE Sadist!! That kind of turns me on...

 

[John Roberts]

Texas Gulf Coast here.
I love storms, I just hate water trying to get in my house...

Lightning is one of the most beautiful things on the planet
Love the sound of thunder too...

Anyhow, Isabel is pretty damn strong, but not as strong as they get. Theres been 200+mph wind stoms that grew one after the other. I'm expecting to see another category 4 or even another 5 after this one...

For some reason I just see Isabel cutting over Florida and into the gulf :\

I wouldn't mind at most a category 3 storm, they sound fun to me...

The wind gusts in this one are exceeding 200Mph...There are only a hand full of storms that have had this much power....I believe Camille is one of them....fortunately most of the Atlantic storms stay in the open ocean........when the big ones form in the Gulf of Mexico there is no place to go except onto land.

My father went through the storm of 1928 that went through Palm Beach County........Their house was shifting from it's foundation during the storm....they had to evacuate and took refuge in a church.....it took ten men to hold the doors shut from the storm.....a two by four flew through the wall.....later they found that a girl they knew had been decapitated by flying sheet metal.........the official death toll from that storm numbered in the hundreds but the official statistics did not include the thousands of Seminole indians that drowned when Lake Okeechobee was pushed out of it's lake bed by the powerful storm.....The present dike system surrounding the lake was built because of that storm.

Another comparable storm swept through the Florida Keys when Henry Flagler was building the railroad down there......Construction crews and residents alike perished in that one.

The worst one was the Galveston Storm, it swept over the barrier Island on the Texas coast killing thousands.

Just call me mister sunshine....I have to admit, I do have a fascination for these storms.

 

[John Roberts]

Whew!

So far none of the forecast models have Isabel coming ashore in Florida......
North Carolina however .....heads up!....but be reassured it is weakening already it will still be fairly strong when and if it comes ashore but not in the super storm category at least.

We are ready however if there is another storm this season.

 

[John Roberts]

Here are a few tables with some information on Hurricanes....

The deadliest 30 is the first.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table2.htm

And the most intense or powerful..

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table4.htm

 

[tonitits]

The wind gusts in this one are exceeding 200Mph...There are only a hand full of storms that have had this much power....I believe Camille is one of them....fortunately most of the Atlantic storms stay in the open ocean........when the big ones form in the Gulf of Mexico there is no place to go except onto land.

My father went through the storm of 1928 that went through Palm Beach County........Their house was shifting from it's foundation during the storm....they had to evacuate and took refuge in a church.....it took ten men to hold the doors shut from the storm.....a two by four flew through the wall.....later they found that a girl they knew had been decapitated by flying sheet metal.........the official death toll from that storm numbered in the hundreds but the official statistics did not include the thousands of Seminole indians that drowned when Lake Okeechobee was pushed out of it's lake bed by the powerful storm.....The present dike system surrounding the lake was built because of that storm.

Another comparable storm swept through the Florida Keys when Henry Flagler was building the railroad down there......Construction crews and residents alike perished in that one.

The worst one was the Galveston Storm, it swept over the barrier Island on the Texas coast killing thousands.

Just call me mister sunshine....I have to admit, I do have a fascination for these storms.

Yeah I heard stories about the Galveston storm. At that time it was like THE port of choices, much like New York is today. And that storm literally wiped out Galveston and it never did come back to the powerful state that it was. For days one weatherman kept telling them something was not right, but they did not have all the scientific equipment that they have now and noone believed him. At first he did not think it was going to be bad either but then he could feel a change in the wind and knew something bad was going to happen. My mom had a book she read about it, I think it is called Isaac's Storm.

 

[John Roberts]

Might as well put the Costliest thirty Hurricanes here as well......

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table3A.htm

 

[Owlz]

As of about noontime Eastern Daylight Time

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20030913/ap_on_re_us/tropical_weather

By JOHN PAIN, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI - Hurricane Isabel weakened to a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds Saturday as it swirled ominously closer to the Atlantic Coast.









AP Photo



Reuters Photo


Slideshow: Tropical Storms and Hurricanes





_


The slow-moving, powerful storm was still several days from land, and forecasters were unsure if it would strike the United States. However, computer models predicted it would turn toward Georgia and the Carolinas over the next five days.



"It's not definite, but things are looking more ominous than yesterday for the East Coast," National Hurricane Center (news - web sites) meteorologist Eric Blake said Saturday.



At 11 a.m. EDT, Isabel's maximum wind speed was 150 mph, down from 160 mph earlier in the week. A storm becomes a Category 5 hurricane, the top level of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, when its winds reach 156 mph.



Isabel was centered about 405 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saturday morning and was moving west at 10 mph. Forecasters expected it to continue that movement until Sunday afternoon.



Large ocean swells and dangerous surf conditions were forecast for the Leeward Islands in the northeastern Caribbean. And the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning Friday advising tourists to avoid the Bahamas because of the storm.



The National Hurricane Center's five-day forecast for Hurricane Isabel put the storm roughly 420 miles east of the Georgia-South Carolina border early Thursday, if it makes a predicted turn to the northwest. But hurricanes can be unpredictable, and long-range forecasts have large possibilities for error.



Forecasters said Hurricane Isabel could still strike anywhere from north Florida to Virginia, and officials warned East Coast residents to be alert.



"If you've been lax with your hurricane preparations, now's a really good time to catch up," Blake said.



Meteorologists said they would know more about the potential direction of the storm late this weekend. The hurricane could pick up strength again as it passes over warmer ocean waters over the next few days, they said.



The last Atlantic hurricane to develop into a Category 5 storm was Mitch in 1998, which killed about 11,000 people in Central America.



The last two Category 5 hurricanes to strike the U.S. coast were Andrew in 1992 and Camille in 1969. Andrew, still the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history with a $30 billion damage toll, tore through south Florida and Louisiana, killing 43 people. Camille killed 143 on the Gulf Coast and 113 in Virginia flooding.



The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.



___

 

[Owlz]

3-Day Probable Track (Sat., Sun., Mon.)

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT13/refresh/AL1303W+GIF/131458W.gif

 

[Owlz]

5-Day Probable Track (Sun., Mon., Tue., Wed., Thu.)

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT13/refresh/AL1303W5+GIF/131458W5.gif

 

[John Roberts]

Yeah I heard stories about the Galveston storm. At that time it was like THE port of choices, much like New York is today. And that storm literally wiped out Galveston and it never did come back to the powerful state that it was. For days one weatherman kept telling them something was not right, but they did not have all the scientific equipment that they have now and noone believed him. At first he did not think it was going to be bad either but then he could feel a change in the wind and knew something bad was going to happen. My mom had a book she read about it, I think it is called Isaac's Storm.

The History Channel had a feature about the Galveston storm...pretty grim stuff......the causeway quickly became impassable and all were trapped....if you look at the table above you will see that the death toll from that storm was between 8,000 and 10,000 people........we take it for granted....Over along the coast of India the tropical cyclones have killed millions of people because of the population density in low lying areas.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: 5-Day Probable Track (Sun., Mon., Tue., Wed., Thu.)

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT13/refresh/AL1303W5+GIF/131458W5.gif

Yikes! If it follows to the extreme left I am still in the strike zone.

 

[FlaminLeviathan]

*Ab Blows really really hard to push Isabel to the middle of the ocean*

Hopefully that'll work