It’s going to Granada, then St. Vincent’s, then Puerto Rico, then the Dominican, then Jamaica, then RAWRRRR.
This is going to be a disaster. 150mph winds. Cripes.
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
It’s going to Granada, then St. Vincent’s, then Puerto Rico, then the Dominican, then Jamaica, then RAWRRRR.
This is going to be a disaster. 150mph winds. Cripes.
Comments are closed.
dan
Atrios beat you to it. Still kinda funny, tho’.
Pb
For the skinny on such things, I heartily recommend going to Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog:
incontrolados
All of the warnings and heads up have started here in Houston. Get your shit together this weekend! Only take the designated evacuation routes. Only leave when it’s your turn. If only people won’t panic like last time — we’ve got a good plan in place. I trust Mayor White.
If it takes a turn after going over the Yucatan (if that’s where it goes) bad news for me and mine. My sis hopes it goes into a relatively unihabited part of Mexico. I hope it peters out in the Gulf and turns into some inconvenient rain.
incontrolados
Don’t I feel like an idiot — I didn’t get it. And I somehow missed that comment by dan, too.
Same thing happened to me the other day on Althouse. Must be my problem.
Keith
“I trust Mayor White.”
The same Bill White who told everyone to get out of Houston NOW when Rita was coming days in advance, which led to one of the worst traffic jams in history (I know several folks who spent 18+ hours going 150 miles to evacuate for what hit Houston relatively mildly)? I can say “BOO!” and the guy will shit his pants, pack up is family, and haul ass to San Antonio. He panicked over Katrina and as a leader, he freaked everyone else out. Tropical Storm Allison was the real bane of Houston.
I hope, hope, hope that this one doesn’t get stronger and/or head north Houston-way (although given that the east side is the worst side of a hurricane, maybe it’s not a good though), but we have to play the cards dealt us. As for me, I’m filling up tomorrow to avoid the lines, and if doom comes, I’m hunkering down & hoping being 15 miles NW of downtown Houston & not in a flood plain, I’ll be relatively dry.
Slide
shit, and I’m supposed to fly to Houston on Monday. I imagine I will be watching the news quite closely this weekend. The thought of being stuck in Texas for an extended period of time sends shivers up this New Yawker’s spine.
demkat620
Hey John,
Hope the hangovers’ not too bad this morning. Just wanted to say thanks for the quality snark lately. It’s been great. BTW, we are sending Swoop over this weekend to kick Steely McBeams ass. This should improve your mood somewhat.
No. 5 looked pretty good last night.
Davebo
Family in Tortola, but fortunately it (and PR) will be spared.
Punchy
Cancun is going to get NAILED
incontrolados
Ahhh Keith is what we call a 2%er here in Houston.
So, yeah, Keith, I trust Mayor White.
Punchy
Wow. The ‘cane is scheduled to hit Southern TX or Mexico, and the chick governor from LA just declared a state of emergency. For Louisiana. WTF?
Under what precedent can one declare this 4-5 days ahead of something that has 0.01% chance of happening? Wow.
demimondian
An eyewall replacement cycle has started — that’s good news.
ThymeZone
Time to get our Onion on:
President Establishes Defense of Climate Act (DOCA)
Announced today, DOCA (Defense of Climate Act) declares climate and weather, such as hurricanes, as Acts of God, and not subject to human intervention, prediction, judgement or criticism.
The act will make it unlawful for citizens to directly criticize weather events or the government’s response to them. The act makes it unlawful to anticipate an Act of God under its Unreasonable Impersonation of a Deity provision.
demimondian
In addition, the use of the term “heckuva” is hereby reserved for Presidentially authorized personnel only. In order to reduce the possibility of confusion, the Roman -goddess- demon Hecuba shall henceforth only be referred to by her alternate name “Hecate”.
Pb
Punchy,
See above–(only) one of the computer models actually did show Dean hitting Louisiana, but it isn’t showing that at the moment:
Pb
Why do you think that’s good news, necessarily?
demimondian
Tropical cyclones basically run on conservation of angular momentum, and, as a consequence, the closer to the center of the storm the eyewall is, the faster the winds near it are. When a replacement cycle takes place, the maximum sustained winds of the storm drop precipitously.
That may not help Cancun — the Gulf has a lot of heat stored in it, and the storm is likely to strengthen again — but it will, at the very least, protect the Caribbean islands in Dean’s path.
Tsulagi
My wife and our two kids flew into San Juan, PR yesterday afternoon. Hooked up with her mom and sister who arrived near the same time then Sunday evening they’re going to start a week cruise.
Almost called off the trip as we watched Dean’s progress, but since mom and the sis who live in other countries haven’t seen the kids in almost two years, plus Dean looked like it was going to stay south of PR, went ahead. Was still pretty worried.
But talked to her last night and she said they all had dinner at an outdoor café. No rain, and only a brisk breeze that helped with the 80+ temp. Lot of people out in the streets partying. Sounded pretty nice. And nice to know that unless it does a U turn, the kids are in more danger from an estrogen fest than Dean.
Looks like Cancun and Cozumel could get tagged hard, though.
Pb
demimondian,
Well I don’t know about ‘precipitously’; in this case, it is expected to drop a bit, temporarily, but eyewall replacement cycles can increase the size of the storm, and is also associated with the rapid intensification cycle:
More on that here as well; but you’re right in that this could be good news for wherever Dean passes over during the eyewall replacement cycle, or at least less bad news than it potentially otherwise could have been. In the long run, though? Who knows–it could end up being very bad news for somewhere else.
demimondian
Pb —
In fact, the cycle is complete, as of the most recent hurricane hunter flight, and the top winds have fallen to 141 from 150+.
Punchy
That’s like saying she was only 250 lbs, not 270.
ThymeZone
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demimondian
TZ — I am interested in your theories, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
demi “isothermal” mondian
Tsulagi
That’s funny. But hey, if you were about to become a bottom like Cancun might, every little pound lighter would be appreciated.
ThymeZone
Now, that scares me.
Pb
Where’d you see that, the last I heard, max sustained winds were at 150mph…
Punchy
Can we PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE get a ‘cane to take out Arkansas?
Seriously, it’s a third-world country. Let’s raze it and start over.
demimondian
Sorry, it’s aged off wunderground, but the 17Z fly-through hit all four quadrants of the eyewall.
Lit3Bolt
I feel like a ghoul tracking these hurricanes. I remember I did it during Andrew when it hit Miami and later the Gulf States, and years later during Katrina, I remember thinking, “Oh crap. New Orleans is gonna get messed up, hard. This is crazy. A lot of people are going to die.”
I was in Cancun 5 months after Wilma. They were still rebuilding. I wonder if there’s going to be a Spring Break destination left after this?
incontrolados
Lit3Bolt — don’t feel that way. Even if you don’t live anywhere near where a hurricane could hit — it’s fairly normal for those of us who do, so I wouldn’t hold it against ya ;)
While most of the local weathercaster types here in Houston are fairly sane, there is one that gets practically giddy at the idea of hurricanes in the Gulf. He’s a real nutter (IMHO).
BIRDZILLA
Like with HURRICANE KATRINA AL GORE and the wackos for GREENPEACE will blame this on GLOBAL WARMING knowing how idiotic they can get