Tropical storm Alberto running thread

OTR: I looked but then I remembered it was a National Weather Service advisory from one of the Louisiana bureaus and not the NHC. I'm sure it's floating around somewhere.

Also to whoever asked about the early hurricane warning: It's because the strongest winds are (or were) actually very far from the center. The center of the storm is 130 miles from Cedar Key, the apparent landfall location as of now, and tropical storm-force winds are close.

This is a dangerous place because the Big Bend has much worse storm surge than other coastal areas because of the geography of the area. They're calling for an 8-10 foot surge, which is pretty good for a strong tropical storm. Imagine if Katrina hit THERE.

 

This is the warning. In Douglas Brinkley's book "The Great Deluge" he notes that the person who wrote this was fron New Orleans East, one of the areas that was in severe jeopardy. He understood what the hell was coming - too bad Nagin and some others apparently didn't grasp it.

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED
LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW
RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND
ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW
TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

 

Update ...

Overnight, the thing nearly died.

According to the water vapor shots the weather service gets from its satellites, there was a huge wall of dry air sitting behind Alberto. Overnight, some of that dry air got pulled into the circulation and seems to have "fractured" the storm on its east side.

There was some nasty weather on Florida's gulf coast, and the panhandle's going to get what's left of the storm. However, where I live we were originally supposed to get a couple of inches of rain today and that seems to have gone away. We got lucky.

It's going to bring more rain and some wind to Georgia and the Carolinas later in the week.

 

As I implied earlier ... Move along now. Nothing to see here.

Once Beryl or Gordon or Helene nudges the Cat 2 needle, I'm in.

Otherwise, zzzzzzzzzz.....

(Helene sounds like a bad-ass storm. That's my entry on the first Cat 5 pool.)

 

wow. the NWS should give out internal awards for stuff like that. talk about prescient.

as for alberto, here in miami, we haven't had a drop of rain since sunday afternoon. it's hot, humid and sunny out right now. a typical summer day.

 

I'd give it a pulitzer, but the all caps is not AP style. Plus there's a contradiction in the opening sentence: how can Katrina have "unprecedented" strength but also be "rivaling" Camille's intensity?

Aside: There's something about the northernmost part of the Gulf of Mexico that fucks up hurricanes on their approach to land. For as bad as Katrina was, she dropped off quite a bit from 175 mph to 125 or whatever the NHC said her landfall intensity was. Rita barely made it as a Cat 3 from 180, and last year's Dennis and 1995's Opal took late nosedives from borderline Cat 5. It's probably not a big part of the reason Alberto struggled at the end, but it's a consideration when you compare it to how hurricanes act when they hit say the west coast of Florida (Wilma unexpectedly bounced to strong Cat 3 when all the forecasts had her as a 2; Charley from 2004 was in the middle of rapid intensification when he landed).

 

Uh, just one little problem with the NHC advisory for NOLA.

The word "flood" or "flooding" is never mentioned.

"WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS."

Well, there was human suffering. But I would hardly call it a water "shortage."

(I know, I know, he meant drinking water. Still . . . )

 

how was he to know that the levees wouldn't hold? it's not his job to worry about the levees. all he can do is report what the storm is doing and how badly it will affect the city.

 

Well, at the time the advisory was posted, it was a Cat 5 storm.

And those levees were only designed to withstand a Cat 3 at best.

In any event, every "worst-case" scenario regarding a major hurricane hitting NOLA --- including the "Pam" simulation done just a few months before Katrina hit --- figured flooding to be the major concern.