OT hurricane Dorien.

[plunger]

My heart breaks to see the destruction in the Bahamas.Lets hope the death toll is low. Hope you guys on the east coast of USA are safe and hopefully damage will be at a minimum.

[wdtom44]

While in the tropics you don't need much of a building to be comfortable in as it never gets cold I hope they put up some rugged ones to replace these. Maybe concrete or block with steel rods from slab to roof to hold the roof on.

[wierdscience]

Yes it's sad,but occasional Hurricanes are the price we pay for living where snow doesn't fall every year,or where the ground doesn't shake.They will rebuild,just like we did,with a little help from our friends and neighbors.

[plunger]

I hear the building codes are one of the strictest in the Carrabean. But I think its hard to cater for a twelve hour 300 km wind and a 23 foot surge. I think it would be cheaper to fix the planet.

My neighboring country had two category 3 or 4 cyclones a month apart.Unheard of so the storm patterns are changing. Over a thousand dead. Its terrible to think some survivors were stuck in a tree for four days.

I see one american walked into a hardware store and bought a hundred generators anonymously .

[Bluechips]

I see one american walked into a hardware store and bought a hundred generators anonymously .

While the thought is indeed nice, the reality is there will probably be severe shortage of fuel for them in the short term at least.

I saw this first hand in the aftermath of Katrina. My town was spared any damage and our power was restored in hours. Some friends in a town less than 100 miles away were without power for about 2 weeks. No fuel was available and he was driving to my town to get gas. As were many others. The folks in the Bahamas have no where to turn for any fuel. Their situation is many times worse.

Sad to say that unless they intend to deliver the generators on a tanker ship loaded with gas, they will, unfortunately, be useless. Better to send solar panels, rechargeable battery packs and inverters.

[wierdscience]

I hear the building codes are one of the strictest in the Carrabean. But I think its hard to cater for a twelve hour 300 km wind and a 23 foot surge. I think it would be cheaper to fix the planet.

My neighboring country had two category 3 or 4 cyclones a month apart.Unheard of so the storm patterns are changing.

It's only unheard of in recent memory and most people's memories are short.Atlantic Hurricanes affecting the East coast of the Americas generally follow a 25 year cycle in the northern hemisphere,there usually will be a 6-8 year period of high activity,followed by 10-15 years of moderate to low activity.The past decade has been below average in both categories.This year the prediction was 8-10 named Hurricanes with 2-4 major Hurricanes making landfall.So far we have seen exactly 2,one mild storm and this one which is a major one.We are actually in a below average activity year.

The problem we have is with the 24 hour news cycle,alarmists that haven't read the data and haven't done their homework and the general public's short attention span.Where I live Hurricanes are a fact of life and if you were born and raised here you learn to understand them and prepare.There are however a large number of people who have never experienced one,either because they are too young,or they have recently moved here.As an example,the last major Hurricane to hit where I live was Hurricane Katrina,that happened going on 14 years ago.The next time around many people will have forgotten,won't evacuate when told,won't be prepared ad the cycle continues.

[Ringo]

Another problem is the weather and news people themselves. They have become alarmists.
They are taking the role themselves as some sort of first-responder.
THEY ARE NOT !!!
They take the winds aloft report of the hurricane hunter aircraft, and submit that as the speed of the storm, when in fact, it well may be 200mph at 10,000ft, it is NOT a Cat-5 on the ground (where the people are)
As of right now, a weather buoy by Charleston clocked a cat-1 wind, but THEY are calling it a cat-3. It is not., it is a cat-1 and barely at that.
That same weather buoy saw the whole storm, eyewall, and went inside the eye. The buoy (on the ground/water) clocked a cat1 wind, max.

I been watching this whole Dorian thing, they are propping up their reports and alarming people.
When the storm was beating the Bahamas, their report was 12ft seas 200 miles out.
Truth was Ft. Pierce clocked 8ft seas 105miles out. That is a big disparity from the actual strength of storm.

What is it that they gain by alarming people and pumping up these storms?
I'm not denying these storms exist, i'm only saying the forecasters are propping the intensity of what is really on the ground.
Did you EVER hear them tell about a 'small' hurricane? Isn't there any examples of a mere Category-1 hurricane?
No, because that does not fit their model.
They only want to forecast a Cat-5 'life-threatening', inundating, flooding hurricane.
Because that is what fits their model.

[Mike Amick]

Another problem is the weather and news people themselves. They have become alarmists.
They are taking the role themselves as some sort of first-responder.
THEY ARE NOT !!!
They take the winds aloft report of the hurricane hunter aircraft, and submit that as the speed of the storm, when in fact, it well may be 200mph at 10,000ft, it is NOT a Cat-5 on the ground (where the people are)
As of right now, a weather buoy by Charleston clocked a cat-1 wind, but THEY are calling it a cat-3. It is not., it is a cat-1 and barely at that.
That same weather buoy saw the whole storm, eyewall, and went inside the eye. The buoy (on the ground/water) clocked a cat1 wind, max.

I been watching this whole Dorian thing, they are propping up their reports and alarming people.
When the storm was beating the Bahamas, their report was 12ft seas 200 miles out.
Truth was Ft. Pierce clocked 8ft seas 105miles out. That is a big disparity from the actual strength of storm.

What is it that they gain by alarming people and pumping up these storms?
I'm not denying these storms exist, i'm only saying the forecasters are propping the intensity of what is really on the ground.
Did you EVER hear them tell about a 'small' hurricane? Isn't there any examples of a mere Category-1 hurricane?
No, because that does not fit their model.
They only want to forecast a Cat-5 'life-threatening', inundating, flooding hurricane.
Because that is what fits their model.

Interesting facts, where did you get them ?

[Bluechips]

They make money off of advertising and if they keep people watching, they can charge more.

[mattthemuppet]

one can also take the opposite approach and say that it's just part of a large cycle and nothing much has changed climate-wise, you just have to look at it with a longer time frame. The oceans are warming and the ocean levels are increasing, both of which puts more energy into storms and increases the consequences when one makes landfall. That doesn't necessarily mean there will be more storms or that any individual storm is going to be better or worse than average, but it does mean that the extremes are going to become more extreme. Think about Miami - major urban area, already struggling with salt water ingress and flooding. Sea levels on that part of the Florida coast are forecast to be about 1 to 2 feet higher by 2060 than 1992. Even if it ends up at half the lower range, that's still going to expose alot more residents to flood risk and increase the damage caused by a storm, whether or not that storm is stronger than it otherwise would have been.

Sure, there have been greenhouse Earths during the history of the Earth and species appear and disappear, but that's not alot of consolation to this one species if you're living near the coast or on an island over the next 50-60 years.

[Ringo]

Interesting facts, where did you get them ?

From weather stations themselves,
and here is a good example, read this whole statement, notice in the first part there is gusts of 86mph range, thats the most they could find all around Charleston,
then in the second part they make statement of sustained winds 110mph.
They got 110mph sustained at winds aloft, and reporting that as a cat-II storm.


000
WTNT65 KNHC 051655
TCUAT5

Hurricane Dorian Tropical Cyclone Update
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL052019
100 PM EDT Thu Sep 05 2019

...HURRICANE FORCE WIND GUSTS OCCURRING IN CHARLESTON HARBOR...

Multiple observing stations located in and around Charleston Harbor
have reported wind gusts of 75-80 mph (120-129 km/h) within the last
hour.

A Weatherflow site in Winyah Bay, SC recently reported a wind gust
of 86 mph (138 km/h) at a height of 50 ft.


SUMMARY OF 100 PM EDT...1700 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...32.7N 79.0W
ABOUT 55 MI...90 KM E OF CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 125 MI...200 KM SSW OF WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...110 MPH...175 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 8 MPH...13 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...958 MB...28.29 INCHES

$$
Forecaster Zelinsky

AND, they are not adhering to their own definition of Saffir-Simpson scale.
The scale is a sustained wind of 1 minute at 10m height. (33feet)

The 86 gust does not qualify for sustained wind, and neither does the 110mph at 10,000ft.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/sshws.pdf

[MattiJ]

Sea levels on that part of the Florida coast are forecast to be about 1 to 2 feet higher by 2060 than 1992. Even if it ends up at half the lower range, that's still going to expose alot more residents to flood risk and increase the damage caused by a storm, whether or not that storm is stronger than it otherwise would have been.

And in here we are still recovering from the last ice age and ground is rising 4 to 10mm per year. In some shallow areas the shoreline has shifted by hundreds of meters in last 100 years and some small harbours have dried up twice within one generation.
Old rocky shorelines are still showing in the forests near my parents home and that is now 30km from sea!

[wierdscience]

one can also take the opposite approach and say that it's just part of a large cycle and nothing much has changed climate-wise, you just have to look at it with a longer time frame. The oceans are warming and the ocean levels are increasing, both of which puts more energy into storms and increases the consequences when one makes landfall. That doesn't necessarily mean there will be more storms or that any individual storm is going to be better or worse than average, but it does mean that the extremes are going to become more extreme. Think about Miami - major urban area, already struggling with salt water ingress and flooding. Sea levels on that part of the Florida coast are forecast to be about 1 to 2 feet higher by 2060 than 1992. Even if it ends up at half the lower range, that's still going to expose alot more residents to flood risk and increase the damage caused by a storm, whether or not that storm is stronger than it otherwise would have been.

Sure, there have been greenhouse Earths during the history of the Earth and species appear and disappear, but that's not alot of consolation to this one species if you're living near the coast or on an island over the next 50-60 years.

July 1715 a Hurricane hit the East Coast of Florida and destroyed 11 Spanish treasure ships,killed 1100 men and stranded another 1500 on the Florida coast.Only one ship of the original fleet of 12 survived,The Griffon,a French merchant vessel,that reached France a month later.

These storms are nothing new,they are not increasing in intensity or frequency,don't believe the media hype.

Miami,as is much of Florida,is perched atop a limestone shelf.That shelf is chris crossed with subterranean rivers of fresh water that are filled through the watershed,flow out and eventually empty into the ocean.Over time these rivers erode the Limestone,what's happening in south Florida has more to do with erosion and subsidence than with sea level rise.Remember the news article about the poor man who was swallowed alive in his house by a massive sinkhole that opened up under his house while he was sleeping?Subsidence caused by erosion.

The predictions regarding sea level rise in whatever time frame can be taken with a grain of salt.They are mostly based on assumption and computer models fed with faulty data.Keep in mind,we have a hundred satellites dedicated to atmospheric science.Hundreds of weather stations on land and in the sea and at last count 35 or so computer models dedicated to storm track prediction.All of this and look at how much uncertainty we had trying to predict what one storm would do over the course of two weeks.

Then there is this little tidbit of news that didn't make it into the mainstream news feeds.Micheal Mann,the author of the much vaunted hockey stick graph lost his defamation case against Dr Tim Ball.Not only did he lose,he was found in-contempt for refusing to produce the methodology he used to produce his data(remember,if an experiment cannot be reproduced under trial,then the result of the experiment must be rejected) If he had nothing to hide,then why not release the methodology?He should be overjoyed at the opportunity to have his work verified,unless something is wrong. And this is one source of the data being used to predict climate change 50-100 years into the future?I'm not taking any bets based on that.

[mattthemuppet]

technically we're still in "icehouse Earth" mode and without all the CO2 we've been pumping into the atmosphere would probably be heading into a glacial period.

As for Finland rising, yay for Finland. Most other coastlines in the world however are not. Some countries will disappear over the next 50-100 years. Sea temperature increases and level rises are not uniform either. Air temperatures have risen twice as fast in Alaska than the contiguous US and waters around Antarctica have warmed more rapidly than other parts of the globe (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08195-6). Got to look at the whole picture.

[plunger]

Regardless of what category the storm was the damage looks more like what a powerful tornado would do. The devastation is unbelievable.It must be terrible to lose your house. It doesnt look like a tree is left behind. That will take many years to rebuild. It would make sense to make new laws where all houses have to be brick with a concrete roof.
I suspect these storm will become the new norm in twenty or so years.