Be Excellent To Each Other

Well for obvious reasons all eyes are now on the Gulf basin. Will Hurricane Gustav be dangerous - possibly fatal - for New Orleans? Mayor Nagin of New Orleans has been on the telly, warning everyone to get out of dodge. A wise move for the people of the city, but Nagin has actually overhyped the threat somewhat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7590426.stm

For one thing no hurricane has a footprint of "900 miles". That's practically the entire gulf in width! The hurricane also is unlikely to land as a catagory four or higher, so it will not be the 'storm of the century'. Computer tracks don't put the average path too close to New Orleans either, so its not as certain as Nagin is putting it. However, I can understand his hyperbole, you don't want people dithering. Fortunately it seems that people are getting out regardless of what he says, New Orleans is pretty deserted right now and the contra-flow system seems to be moving people out okay.

It seems that Gustav has weakened also, and is not starting the day at the same 'intensification starting point' as initially feared. Top level winds have dropped from 175mph to 125mph and the eyewall is looking a little ragged and bigger. Winds are estimated to drop later to 120mph and the pressure to be around 960mb. That's pretty good news, though it still means that Gustav will pack a punch on landfall, just not as big a one. Such momentary disorganisation of the storm's structure also means that it may have trouble sucking up enough fuel from the loop current as it should.

That's the good news. The bad is that Gustav still may experience a fast reintensification and get its act back together. It is shortly going to be passing over a warm water zone, and that's good eating for 'canes. There's still a chance that the hurricane will nethertheless weaken again and be back down to the 120mph mark, but worryingly it looks like there may be a better chance of further pressure drop and a sustained restrengthening of winds. The worst aspect of Gustav is that its moving a lot faster than Katrina. When a hurricane begins fringing land it falls apart quite rapidly if it is a slow mover. Katrina was a slow mover, and a last minute blast of cold air from Texas and Mexico weakened it substantially still and knocked it off course at the last minute, sparing the city. Yup, I said sparing. If that rare blast hadn't happened when it did, you would have been looking at 20,000+ dead in New Orleans and no city any more.

So Gustav is moving fast, and we're not guaranteed the fluky cold air surge. Current models put Gustav's track a way's west of New Orleans, enough to give it a rough time with minor levee failure probably. But there's a chance that it may track further east, and land just west of the city. That would be very bad news. A landfall just west of New Orleans is worse than one east, and even worse than landing plumb square on the city itself. Winds are always higher on the eastern side of a hurricane and the storm surge deadlier. Katrina landed on the east side of the city, causing damage from weaker west side winds.

Also, everyone expected a track a lot, lot further away west from New Orleans. In the last few hours that track has shifted closer to the city, will it track further east again is the question?

Worst case scenario:

Gustav strengthens to cat 4 and comes ashore just west of New Orleans. Moving quickly it cannot decay over land. Wind speeds of 150mph+ knock the roofs of houses and a storm surge of around 20-30ft hits the city, overwhelming levees that are only there to protect against 12-15ft surges of Hurricane Betsy levels. The city is destroyed.

Fortunately it looks like the vast majority have evacuated, so the toll remains in the hundreds, maybe skirting a thousand or two.

Likely scenario: Gustav strengthens only a little and then weakens only a little. At 1 p.m Monday, the eye of Gustav will be in Timbalier Bay, just east of Port Fourchon, as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 133 mph, fallign to a Category 1 further inland. (Google Earth it.) The landfall point is around sixty miles south of New Orleans, which puts the track at thirty-sixty miles east of the city.

http://www.nola.com says...



Let's hope it avoids having much effect on Lake Pontchartain, eh? I'll keep you updated on this one as more news comes in.

Thanks, Pete! And now, over the Grim... with the traffic report.

GRIM...: Thanks, Meaty. Lots of FILTHY PLEBS were in the way of my Land Rover today. I had to ask Jeeves to pop up through the sunroof and shoot them with a rifle.

Surf is looking good for about a week in Cornwall at least.

Was anyone else following this, for Katrina?

http://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/27/

I was.

It was unexpectedly hilarious at times.

*chuckles*

Aye.

Hmm, things are looking a bit better now. IF Gustav does not have another severe pressure drop this one may fizzle out a bit. The excellent blog 'Weather Nerd' by Brendan Loy says:



Also, weather expert Dr Masters adds:



So it's looking a little rosier than it was before. Still not time to be complacent though, it could still be a bad 'un, it's just looking a fair bit less likely. Anyway, I'm off down to the Welsh Club to bop to Sweet Baboo's album launch. Only £2! Wonder what the situation will be like when I get back. Hmm...

I'm relying on this thread as my sole source of news on this topic, nervouspete, so keep the updates coming

Well, it's looking a little better, but still undecided.

Basically Gustav failed to reintensify much, leaving it at a category 2/3 with 115 - 120mph winds. It's still on more or less the same track, just WEST of New Orleans - the worst area for a hurricane to be in, but perhaps a smigeon too far from the city for true nastiness. The weather bloggers seem agreed that there's around a 44% chance of Hurricane winds in New Orleans, and a slightly lower chance of those being damaging. So in that sense not as bad as Katrina.

The bad news is that the hurricane has increased forward speed again and isn't showing signs of breaking up approaching land yet. Pressure has dropped further to 952mb as the last updates had it, which means its still holding together. The big question on everyone's lips is - will the levees hold?

This is tricky. Contrary to popular belief, Katrina only caused a 12 foot storm surge, and the levees were supposed to hold against 15-16ft. They did in the main, but several still failed catastrophically. The weakest levees in New Orleans are on the west side, the side facing the storm, and so far surge appears to be around 9ft. However, these are the early hours for the hurricane, and those waves could pick up.

So what's my thinking? I reckon New Orleans is going to come through this, if the engineers and city and government have done their job in the years since Katrina and restored them to their pre-disaster levels. The Corps of Engineers announced that they have, but their record along with all levels of government isn't exactly golden. If that storm surge picks up a few feet then New Orleans may see Katrina level flooding. As it stands I think they've dodged the bullet.

Make no mistake, it's still a nasty hurricane, especially for the US oil facilities directly under landfall, but its far, far from the killer storm-of-the-century Mayor Nagin warned about. (Though to be fair if the 'cane had intensified early Sunday, he would have been closer to the mark.)

Edited due to me boneheadedly accidently typing EAST instead of WEST.

Not much to update at the moment, seems the former colonials are sleeping and stuff at the moment. Tornado watch on in New Orleans. Landfall for the centre of the hurricane should be in about twelve hours over New Orleans. I think. I'm tired, I'm not sure.

We may still be looking at the predicted 9ft + surge. More data should be coming in early afternoon.

It's only a hurricane, and it's not like we gave a fuck when it went over Cuba, so why the fuck should I care about a bunch of swamp dwelling septics?

Because it's like a disaster movie. And New Orleans kind of has it coming, what with being beneath sea level and whatnot. The added bonus is watching how well the richest and most arrogant country in the world deals with stuff like this when it isn't happening in the Hollywood hills. (Obviously, you hope the worst doesn't really happen because on previous evidence, the answer is "not very well")

Good oh. As you were then.

Also, because I am fascinated by weather systems. Despite lives being in danger I get a guilty thrill looking at the data myself and trying to guess what's going to happen. I also find it fascinating that hurricanes for the last couple of decades have generally only killed a few, thanks to warning systems and evacuation plans, and yet have this awe-inspiring power and energy that - with a certain horrible combination of factors - could destroy a city for ALWAY.

This disaster movie/weather nerd giddiness keeps blinding otherwise sensitive me to human plight. But that's the weak spot in my otherwise humane and vast-monkey-sphered existence.

But I am still hoping New Orleans catches a break. They should still demolish the city though and move somewhere else.

Don't know what they are moaning about really, it looks quite nice:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0274


This is the important bit, I feel.

Hurricane coming ashore now, expected to remain a category three for the next twelve hours.

This from Nola.com (the leading newspaper for New Orleans and a great online source) -



The Fresh Bilge blog has a happy outlook:



Though the path of the hurricane is identical to the New Orleans ravaging Betsy, it is around 40mph less intense and Orleans didn't have the levees then it has now. Things are looking better for Orleans, certainly.

http://www.nola.com goes on to say:



I remember how it looked like New Orleans had dodged Katrina at first, but then it became increasingly apparent twelve hours after it had passed through that the levees were failing. Happily, from my memories of tracking that one the surge seems a lot less. It could still pick up dramatically as the winds and low pressure work on the lake and Mississippi more, but aside from flooding on the coast line and in the hurricane path, I reckon it's not going to be that bad.

Ha! Is that Michael Fish reporting again?

I sincerely hope that this causes as little damage as possible... my bonus depends on it!

Yup! This is a good read, illustrates the sort of problems they're dealing with.

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/featur ... index.html

I'm sure there are reasons it made sense at the time, but in a country that big with that much land why they decided to drain a swamp (thats beneath sea level) and live there is beyond me.

It's the port at the mouth of the Mississippi river, and was important for the trade of about half the US before railways kicked off. It's still a really major port, I think.

D'oh. Of course.

Still I think it might be time to call it quits.

Probably. Or just buy a shed load of poles and stick everything there on 20ft stilts.

Which would have the added bonus of protecting you from zombie infestation.

Well, interesting things are happening to Gustav. Basically its losing part of its eyewall and beginning to tear apart. This always happens to some extent when hitting land, but not to this degree. The good news is that this means slightly less intense winds, with a peak of 115mph. We're looking at a category 2 in effect. The bad news is that the winds are spread over a wider radius, as they would be for a category 5, which means that New Orleans could come under some buffetting. However, the hurricane is also having difficulty with its northern vector, possibly due to an earlier than anticipated mass of dry air from the midwest. That's good news for New Orleans, as the hurricane is bundled west a little more sharply.

But what about those all important levees?

Dr Jeff Masters says...



This is still within predicted tolerance limits of the levees at 15-16ft, but remember that it was only a 9-12 footer that did for New Orleans. So how is it holding up? Well contrary to the above http://www.nola.com says...



So it's looking good at the moment. Sense the news networks masked chargrin at the lack of woe. Still, I imagine that coastline is getting a bit of a hammering right now. There's a small city of 30,000 under landfall, but if that's not totally evacuated then colour me surprised. May be the only crisis that comes out of this is oil disruption.

I'll be keeping my eye on the situation and keep you posted. ("Wahey." - BETEO.)

I found myself wondering if there'll be some sort of announcement afterwards along the lines of "Oh no, there was some localised high wind that's blown down all that project/tenament/cheapy type housing that we desperately wish wasn't there so we could build new expensive stuff. If only everyone hadn't left the city. Nudge nudge. No, don't look at that column of bulldozers and overloaded quarry trucks driving away, look at this distraction over here!"

But then I'm sure that's just my unwarranted cynicism kicking in.

It is. 80% of New Orleans is project/tenament/cheapy type housing.

*looks at pictures of levees with water going over them on BBC News*

Rut roh.

Where? Can't see those.

You seem to be good at this, Pete.

Is any bad weather likely to be heading Florida way soon? My sister goes there for her honeymoon next week. IT'D BETTER BE NICE.

Some more from Nola.





Imagine that giving way, at night, when you're asleep in the shadow of it. That was what caused the majority of casualties in Katrina. Will it give way? No idea. I'm cautiously optimistic. It won't be scoured away as before, but the pressure on that thing must be incredible. Touch and go say I, but I think it'll hold.

Ahh, she may have trouble with Tropical Storm Hanna.



No one has any idea really when exactly it will hit. It's sort of loitering. But there seems to be a bit of a tropical storm and tropical depression parade going on at the moment, so things may be tricky. The only boon about Flordia and hurricanes is that they tend to tear over the narrow strip of land fairly quickly, not having enough time to cause much damage. Therefore airports are usually clear and infrastructure peachy, so I think she'll be okay. I'll keep you updated though!

Cheers Pete, it'll probably be OK, but nice to know what's going on.

New astoundo-pic from Nola.com.



Which was a bit like how I felt walking home from work today. Ugh, it's very, very rainy in Cardiff today.

I think the odds on the wall breaking are very low now. The only danger is in the two barges that were left in the canal and have come loose in drifting over and impacting on the wall, which would rupture it. The odds on that are very low though. Looks like the wall is working. Amused to read comments on Nola complaining about the height of the wall. "Why didn't they build it bigger?! Army corps cutting corners again!" As if it's merely a matter of building a bigger wall. You add a foot to that wall you create another foot deep of lake pressure pounding away. It probably wouldn't hold. Worse, what is harmless overspill now (though in Katrina it was dangerous due to them not having concrete pads, leading to scouring) would be an increased strain.

There's a lot of anger on the web over the fact-free hyperbole blather of the major network reports. Seems they're treating it like a reality TV show. Also, there's a certain callousness in filming in the French Quarter and saying, "Eh, it's not so bad," when people's houses and livelihoods are getting torn apart along the South Louisianna coastline. There will be hundreds if not thousands of houses demolished along the coast from the 15ft coastal storm surge.

Just got back from a pretty terrible gig, late night update:

http://www.nola.com



Could be bad, still not Katrina scale though if it does break. If the wall or levee does give way then that's some intensive flooding, however. Overall it looks like New Orleans has dodged the bullet. Here's Brendan Loy's WeatherNerd blog:



Meanwhile the Industrial Canal - one of the critical points that breached during Katrina - is still holding.



The Industrial Canal

It is now the backwash of the storm that is causing the surge. However, in case you're all going, "Pfah! It was just an overhyped threat due to the disaster Katrina was, there wasn't anything to be afraid of!" Well, read this chunky fucker by weather expert and quality blogger Dr Jeff Masters:



So things are looking better in New Orleans? Well, this French Quarter pic shows wind has died down. But Storm Surge is affected by pressure not wind. Still, pleasant times in the historic heart of New Orleans:



Incidently, Hanna is now a hurricane. Sorry Sir Taxalot.

Update!

The local paper and quality source Times-Picayune says:



So what's the Plaquemines area? Well, it's a sector of around 400 homes and small businesses. Distressing but not catastrophic. Unfortunately, that's not all the news, Brendan Loy's excellent WeatherNerd blog (which got a Time magazine feature and of which I followed in the run-up to Katrina, being the most erudite and compelling - and all that and being run by a fellow ginger four years my junior) has this unsubstantiated report:



That's bad news. How bad we'll find out soon. Or in the morning, when we wake up.

Meanwhile some great images here from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122027884503687405.html

Right, I'm off to bed. Guess it'll all be decided by the time I wake up.

The radio says they're starting to bus people back in so it can't be too bad.
2 million people!

Of course, this means that next time a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, everyone will say "Pfah, they said the last one was going to be the disaster of the century, and it was just a bit of rain and wind! Fucked if I'm leaving this time". And they'll all drown.

Yup, people only seem to remember the last one.

Well, updates. Nagin says that the earliest people can start coming back is Wednesday, which has ruffled a lot of feathers. This is actually on recommendation by the governor. There's a lot of power out over the city and trees, branches, lines and signs all over the place. People still want to start returning home though, and there seems to be a fair bit of fury over the fact that they aren't allowed when the news reports show a lack of damage. My earlier post about a potential levee failure thankfully wasn't substantiated. There's no mention of it this morning.

It will be interesting to see how the coast fared. Mayhap there's a lot of damage there, though I can't imagine anyone stuck around to get killed.

So, my conclusions?

1: The evacuation went smoothly this time and was vastly improved. It was sounded sufficiently early, last time it was left almost too late.

2: The Hurricane itself came ashore as moderate category 2 instead of the category 4. There's some flack being directed at Nagin's hyperbole speech, but that really is unfair. Intensity forecasts are impossible to be exact about, and it did look like the warm loop current was going to intensify it far more than it did. So why is this? Well, Cuba took a chunk out of the hurricane breaking it up a little. Normally it would have reformed pretty fast, but a blast of cool dry air coming in from Mexico updrafted into the system and tore a hole in the eyewall. This tilted the hurricane and prevented it from effectively scooping up the energy it usually would. So bravo for the Mexico winds. Once again, a fluky last minute blast of air has spared New Orleans, as it did with Katrina. (No, really. Katrina would have wiped out New Orleans last time as a strong category 3 were it not for that wobble.)

3: The weather blogs once again usurped the mainstream media. Network coverage was laughable, and seeing wet reporters grimacing and leaning into gale force winds is getting pretty feeble. The blogs collate data from people on the ground, bundle the best predictions, have links to better, more responsive local news sites and add their own theories on top. Bravo blogs.

4: Don't forget the gulf coast. While everyone is having a handjob over the sparing of New Orleans, the primary oil facility of the US gulf has suffered a direct hit and no one knows how damaged it is. Likewise for the small city of Houma, home to 30,000, and the homes of two hundred thousand and more in the path of Gustav. This wasn't a squib.

5: New Orleans has proved it can survive a category 2. Lets just hope it doesn't get people to thinking that it means the levees can survive bigger hits. You can't protect against a category 4, and that's why you were evacuated. Also, will you idiots stop thinking that stopping storm surge is as simple as adding another eight or so feet to a levee. If they could do that, they would, but the pressure would rip it away. You live in the most retarded place for a city on Earth. You can't magically fix what is a deathtrap.

6: Hurricane season is gearing up with in the last two days a big parade of new exciting hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions assembling. Hurricane Hanna is currently stalling at 4mph but could prove a threat to Florida still, or as some are arguing New York. (It has happened before, believe it or not, to devestating effect.) Tropical storm Ike looks likely to develop and there's Tropical depression Josephine that looks set to become a storm too. There's also a couple of tropical waves forming that could add another two to the mix. Remember though that only 10-20% of tropical storms eventually hit the US, so its early days indeed.

A report later on Gustav's damage and a little on political shennanigans. Also more to come over the season which ends November. The Hurricane commentary by nervouspete CANNOT BE STOPPED.

This is very excellent reportage nervouspete. And it spares the likes of me trawling through broken local newspaper websites and blogs with depressing republican attack ads on them.
Thank you.

Aw, thanks Kalmar!



DA-NA!

Looking at the comments in the Nola news article on the pretty-prompt-in-my-opinion-Wednesday-home-again plan Craster may be bang on the money for some Oreleo's at least:

#comments">http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf ... l#comments



If it were a category four you wouldn't have a house, let alone power. If the levee system fully breaks - which it didn't in Katrina - there is no uptown, EVERYTHING is under water. Clod.



No you clot, at the time evacuation sounded it could easily have been a Category Four. You don't wait to evacuate a few hours before hand to be sure if you need to or not, you need a day at least, nor is evacuation about certainties. There was a 40% chance of being a four, more likely it was going to be a two or borderline three. Sure Nagin and everyone should have played Russian roulette!



B'oh!



Ack!

To be fair, there are wise voices on that comments thread. But worryingly too many dullards. People don't seem to realise that the reason they can't go home yet is not New Orleans, but the road links the storm went over between where they are now and New Orleans. Torrential rain, downed power lines, trees - if Nagin said "come home tomorrow" everyone would pile back now and there would be a mammoth traffic snarl lasting a good day. And more criticism. Nagin is indeed one of the worst mayors in America, but he has this on good advice. He should probably release a statement though explaining the wisdom behind the decision.

Out of interest nervouspete, how often can we expect a cat 4/5 to hit bang on the nose? Is it a once in a million years thing, or once in a century, or more often? It seems like New Orleans is screwed sooner or later it's just a matter of when and how badly,

I think I read somewhere that the levees are theoretically up to a "once in 100 years" flood level. That, from what I learned on my recent visit to the Netherlands, is rather crappy.

The odds on a category four or higher hurricane making landfall in the US are quite low, but not low enough. There have only been twelve category fives since 1928 to strike the Americas, unusually in 2007 there were for the first time two in one season - Dean and Felix hitting the Yucatan Peninsula and Nicaragua respectively. There have only been three in recorded history (post 1920's) to hit the United States, 'Labor Day' hitting the Florida Keys in 1935 killing 400-600, Camille hitting Mississippi and Alabama in 1969 killing 259 and Andrew hitting Florida in 1992 killing only 26 but being the costliest until Katrina.

Category four landfalls are number around twelve US landfalls in the same time period.

Category 2 & 3 are more common, with usually one landfall a year in the US, sometimes two. Category 1's aren't much more powerful than a tropical storm and don't garner much mention.

So the odds of a cat four and higher hitting bang on New Orleans are pretty low admittedly, I'd say you could expect one every 80 - 100 years. Which hasn't happened yet. A category four coming within 110 miles of New Orleans could overwhelm the city however. However Katrina was only a weak category 3, and you could have one of those hit New Orleans every twenty-thirty years. Odds are funny things though, and each season is different. Hurricanes usually go for ten years strong-ten years weak cycles. Climate change may mean higher water temperatures and more hurricanes however. (Though a few scientists say that a higher average temperature may mean more tropical storms but fewer hurricanes, as the energy is spread over a wider area.)

As for the Army Corps of Engineers:

BBC:


Hope that helps!

"Hanna was drenching the Bahamas and Haiti with torrential rains.

Haitian officials put the nation's death toll in the wake of Hanna and Hurricane Gustav at 61, said Abel Nabaire, the deputy coordinator of the civil protection service.

Eight of the country's 10 departments underwater, he said."

Not good.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/weather/0 ... rss_latest

Does this mean Gazchap's going to get rained on or not?

Rain - probably.

Hurricane - nope.

For some reason, hurricanes historically don't hit Barbados.

It's a moot point, because his plane won't get there in one piece anyway.

What a way to spend your holiday - bobbing around in the Atlantic, mournfully tooting on your emergency whistle.

Still, a change is as good as a rest, eh?