Hurricane Florence running thread

Fuck you! Real people live here!

Like me and Creosote.

 

Refer to what Cat 5 Camille did to Nelson County in August 1969. Hit Biloxi, people stopped paying attention to the remnants, which hit after sunset and stalled overnight.

The one huge thing: massive landslides. The mountains were already saturated, and 25+ inches of rain in less than 6 hours caused the sides of mountains to slough off. Over 100 killed. Some never found. I think one or two floated down the James to Richmond.

I’ve paid a lot of attention to weather ever since.

Be careful everyone. And if you are ever in a situation with running water over a roadway - please, because this kind of thing killed several in Nelson (who would have survived if they had stayed home or found a different route):

Turn around, don’t drown!

 

We've had one of the wettest years on record in Richmond. A stalled tropical system would be a major disaster for this area. The ground is already super saturated.

 

I've always been fascinated by how these storms have such different effects in different regions of the country based on geography and ecology.

In the mountains you get these torrential rushes as the ground is rockier and unable to absorb much of it.

I've lived through - and in my younger days - reported on hurricanes in Eastern N.C., where the ground and trees have an amazing ability to absorb the impact; Maryland's Chesapeake Bay communities, where the soft coastal cliffs cannot handle the slightest storm surge; the Virginia mountains, where the runoff is absolutely terrifying; and Central Florida, where much like Eastern N.C., the land and ecology have evolved to handle hurricanes but unlike ENC man has grossly over-built the environment.

My favorite story - perhaps because it did not end in death - was writing about a guy who was driving around drunk in the remnants of Hurricane Jean near his trailer about three quarters of the way up the Blue Ridge. He decided to drive his little Nissan pickup over a washed out bridge, and the truck promptly got swept away and stuck upside down against a small culvert pipe. Couldn't have been more than 24 inches in diameter. Neighbors call it in and by the time the rescue crew gets there, he's gone. Cops go to his house and find him soaking wet, stinking drunk and pretending like they just rousted him out of bed. Best they could figure was he somehow survived getting sucked through the culvert pipe and stumbled home.

 

No.

 

Fourteen years of South Florida home ownership is more than enough to make me think I know something about hurricanes, so here are my thoughts.

The location that looks like the landfall spot a week out is not where landfall will actually happen.

The forecasts over the last few days keep moving the turn north a little bit earlier. Florida and Georgia have been taken out of the cone and VA is in. Someone must think the high that has kept Florence moving West is weakening/moving east. I am guessing that will continue and if I were in MD, VA, DE, I would be preparing for a hurricane landfall.

North Carolina will get a ton of rain. I have friends (and one of my horses) who live in the foothills area of western NC, an area that has already seen mudslides, roads washed out, deaths from flooding this year. I am very concerned about the additional rain Florence could dump in the region and throughout the State.

The path of the hurricane can change at the last minute. This happened two years ago with Matthew. It was just offshore, headed in my general direction when it took a tiny shift north, which moved it north to bounce along the coasts of northern FL, GA and the Carolinas. Everybody along the coast from the Carolinas north need to keep watching this.

 

That's what I noticed, which is exactly what I need. The ensemble models (also called spaghetti models) are even further north than the NHC track (it often takes NHC a while to catch up, for some reason). And the GFS ensemble is further north still.

 

NC wants me and MC to GDIAH!

 

Collateral damage. Too damn bad.

 

I hope the storm takes out Neutral Corner’s “post Twitter link” button.

 

snow storm New England (internet pic, a little bit of an exaggeration)


Day or 2 before Matthew, coastal SC