Tropical Storm Ernesto targets ... now it's Florida again

nah, no schlitz hangover. got rid of that about 8 last night. strange feeling-getting on a nice buzz in the afternoon, getting sort of hungover later in the afternoon, then being stone cold sober well before bedtime. haven't done that since college more than a decade ago, but hurricanes are as good an excuse as any to do some drinking, right?

 

Meanwhile, isn't something kicking the hell out of western Mexico right now?

 

That would be this fella ...



It could get stronger, too. Not expected to make landfall (though two computer models do provide that solution, and one has it going up the Gulf of California and possibly dumping rain on Arizona). However, hurricane conditions are likely to affect parts of the Mexican coast, and the NHC forecast path also has it grazing Baja California:



Also: Super Typhoon Ioke is hours away from turning Wake Atoll into The Lost Atoll of Wake with its 160 mph winds. This is believed to be the longest-lasting Category 5 storm in recorded world history.

In that company, Ernesto is one of God's half-farts.

 

Meat --
It's what's for weather.

 

We are two away from Canada's own hurricane — Gordon.

 

What can I say, I've been fascinated by the weather (and hurricanes in particular) since fifth grade. Would have made it my vocation, until I realized that a) I don't have the math and science aptitudes to be a meterologist, and b) I don't have Stephanie Abrams' boobs or legs. So I content myself with peanut-gallery analysis.

Could be worse: on another message board in another galaxy far, far away I'm having a, shall we say, interesting conversation with a self-proclaimed "strict Constitutionalist" who believes that funding NOAA (and damn near anything else) is unConstitutional. He said that the forecasters completely missed the possibility of Katrina hitting Mississippi, and when I showed him proof from the NHC site that they most certainly did not, he said they had the time to update the site to make themselves look better. Art Bell would be proud.

 

Re: Tropical Storm/Hurricane Ernesto targets ... South of the Border

2 p.m. advisory: sustained winds up to 70 mph, pressure down to 993 mb. With a projected landfall at the North Carolina/South Carolina border in about 10 hours, the chance of this becoming a Cat 1 hurricane are pretty good now. It probably won't be much stronger than, say, 80 mph, but be warned in the mid-Atlantic: it's going to be a stronger storm for wind than we were thinking yesterday or even this morning. Viva the mercurial nature of the tropical cyclone.

 

Meat --
Does he think an airplane hit the Pentagon?

 

He does, but he thinks God called for it either a) because of allowing women in the military or b) as part of a grander retribution from Him for this nation's various misdeeds and sins. He's equal parts hyper-extreme, King James Bible or burn in hell fundamentalist and hyper-extreme, John Birch-admiring conservative (though not so much that he would have voted for the Constitution Party candidate, even though he would have been much more to his liking than Bush). I suspect it's a broad parody of extremists in both camps, but if so, he plays it so straight that I can't resist going after him when he makes an epically retarded statement (babies go to hell because they don't accept Jesus, only white landowners should have the vote, the NHC did not forecast Katrina to do anything in Mississippi and only now are revising history on their website so as to make them look like heroes after the fact).

 

Columbo: I hear what you're saying.

But given the continuing inexactness of this, I don't see how the people at the NHC can do anything but continue to talk about worst-case scenarios, and I don't see how the local media can do anything but report it.

We've had a couple of events that were going to be nothing and became something (like Irene, and that thing that never even got a name and dropped all that shit on South Florida a few years ago).

Imagine the reverse scenario: Hurricane Center says Ernesto is a tropical storm but don't worry about it, and the media says, "OK," and then it hits the Florida Straits and blows up in a hurry, and South Florida gets slammed, and nobody's prepared. That's a hell of a lot worse than being prepared for something that ultimately doesn't happen.

It's a pain in the ass, but I honestly don't know what the hurricane folks and the local media are supposed to do any differently.

Good luck to those folks in the Carolinas and beyond.

 

I agree.

But worst-case scenarios of 70 mph at the eye wall should not spawn span-the-state storm coverage and cause runs on the gas stations.

There has never been a Cat 1 that has survived the 7,000-foot mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba to impact SoFla with any intensity greater than a typical summer torrential downpour.

There is no expanse of water to reorganize.

A 12-year-old knows this.

But all respect to you, SF and your continual reasoned perspective.

I simply vehemently disagree in this case.

And, me too, my fingers are crossed for our Carolinians.

 

Again, I understand, and like Meat, I'm a big weather guy myself. But I can't imagine Max Mayfield and those guys are saying it could possibly strengthen into a Cat 1 again if it's not possible. Are they?