Laura and Marco

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There is a lot of divergence in the intensity forecasts if Laura hits us in about 72 hours.

Half of the models predict a pretty big hit whereas the others meh.

Floyd said:

There is a lot of divergence in the intensity forecasts if Laura hits us in about 72 hours.

Half of the models predict a pretty big hit whereas the others meh.

Intensity forecasting is nearly impossible. Can almost certainly promise you it won’t be a hurricaune by the time it gets to us though. Doubt it’s even a tropical storm. 

WxNut2.0 said:

Floyd said:

There is a lot of divergence in the intensity forecasts if Laura hits us in about 72 hours.

Half of the models predict a pretty big hit whereas the others meh.

Intensity forecasting is nearly impossible. Can almost certainly promise you it won’t be a hurricaune by the time it gets to us though. Doubt it’s even a tropical storm. 

Happy to read your prediction which I noticed, on this forum, have been accurate.

We're no resilience against strong storms. I see tropical storm can killin electric power in some NJ places for days. Its worrying what a Cat 3 or higher would do. Weeks or months of no power?

Floyd said:

WxNut2.0 said:

Floyd said:

There is a lot of divergence in the intensity forecasts if Laura hits us in about 72 hours.

Half of the models predict a pretty big hit whereas the others meh.

Intensity forecasting is nearly impossible. Can almost certainly promise you it won’t be a hurricaune by the time it gets to us though. Doubt it’s even a tropical storm. 

Happy to read your prediction which I noticed, on this forum, have been accurate.

We're no resilience against strong storms. I see tropical storm can killin electric power in some NJ places for days. Its worrying what a Cat 3 or higher would do. Weeks or months of no power?

 I can with 100% confidence tell you we won’t have a cat 3 hurricane Laura here. Tropical cyclones over land degrade extremely quickly and this will be no exception. Any model showing a substantial hurricane at any time is assuming it is back out to sea somewhere.

Whether officially categorized as such or not, this may really be a cat 5 level hurricane right now, and may be so at landfall. It’s a bit semantic as the categories are discrete and quasi-arbitrary, but this is some rarified air. There have only been four officially ranked category 5 hurricanes ever to make landfall in the US. 

Looks like it was just shy of cat 5 which, as wxnut pointed out, is arbitrary anyway.  This is a massive storm and the damage down there is going to be horrific.

Here by contrast it will make this weekend rainy and gusty.

The Lake Charles, LA radar dish went down around 2am eastern time last night. There was debate at the time over whether that was due to a communications issue at the Lake Charles weather service or if the radar itself failed. Daylight answered that question:

(https://twitter.com/AlaStormTracker/status/1298992015405805570)

If it had gone in a hundred or so miles farther west, at Galveston, it would have been even more catastrophic, considering the plethora of oil refineries, chemical plants and associated storage tanks on the Houston Ship Channel which runs from Galveston Bay almost to downtown Houston.  They actually have a plan/proposal for a very advanced levee/dike system (similar to what they have in the Netherlands) that could close off Galveston Bay and help prevent much of the potential damage.  I believe it was developed after Hurricane Rita.  But, sadly, there isn't the political will to pay for it.  Sooner or later this will happen, though.  This time it came too close for comfort.

sac said:

If it had gone in a hundred or so miles farther west, at Galveston, it would have been even more catastrophic, considering the plethora of oil refineries, chemical plants and associated storage tanks on the Houston Ship Channel which runs from Galveston Bay almost to downtown Houston.  They actually have a plan/proposal for a very advanced levee/dike system (similar to what they have in the Netherlands) that could close off Galveston Bay and help prevent much of the potential damage.  I believe it was developed after Hurricane Rita.  But, sadly, there isn't the political will to pay for it.  Sooner or later this will happen, though.  This time it came too close for comfort.

 It's really only a matter of time before this happens. Ike and Harvey both came precariously close.

The petrochemical industry on the gulf coast has been effectively shut down (temporarily) several times in the past. I think the last time was with Harvey in 2017.

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WxNut2.0 said:

sac said:

If it had gone in a hundred or so miles farther west, at Galveston, it would have been even more catastrophic, considering the plethora of oil refineries, chemical plants and associated storage tanks on the Houston Ship Channel which runs from Galveston Bay almost to downtown Houston.  They actually have a plan/proposal for a very advanced levee/dike system (similar to what they have in the Netherlands) that could close off Galveston Bay and help prevent much of the potential damage.  I believe it was developed after Hurricane Rita.  But, sadly, there isn't the political will to pay for it.  Sooner or later this will happen, though.  This time it came too close for comfort.

 It's really only a matter of time before this happens. Ike and Harvey both came precariously close.

 My history on this was a bit off.  The proposal is called "Ike Dike" and stemmed from damage during Hurricane Ike.  

yahooyahoo said:

The petrochemical industry on the gulf coast has been effectively shut down (temporarily) several times in the past. I think the last time was with Harvey in 2017.

The disaster mentioned would not be prevented by shutting things down.  It could include the storm surge combined with high winds destroying or uplifting tanks and other refinery/chem plant components containing hazardous materials, with massive pollution as well as a potential tsunami-like rush of water with broken up pieces of equipment and storage tanks slamming against anything in its path - both on its way inland and then back out, along the 50-ish mile corridor between Galveston and downtown Houston as well as potentionally well beyond the center of Houston (as was the case with Harvey for the floodwaters.)

(Harvey's landfall was near Corpus Christi - about 200 miles down the coast from Galveston.)

sac said:

yahooyahoo said:

The petrochemical industry on the gulf coast has been effectively shut down (temporarily) several times in the past. I think the last time was with Harvey in 2017.

The disaster mentioned would not be prevented by shutting things down.  It could include the storm surge combined with high winds destroying or uplifting tanks and other refinery/chem plant components containing hazardous materials, with massive pollution as well as a potential tsunami-like rush of water with broken up pieces of equipment and storage tanks slamming against anything in its path - both on its way inland and then back out, along the 50-ish mile corridor between Galveston and downtown Houston as well as potentionally well beyond the center of Houston (as was the case with Harvey for the floodwaters.)

(Harvey's landfall was near Corpus Christi - about 200 miles down the coast from Galveston.)

 This is a good point. And one thing to consider is that as the climate continues to warm, we will see more and more Harvey-like rain events leading to catastrophic flooding. Will be very tough to prevent the spread of chemicals from these plants when the Ocean is pretty much into Houston. FWIW, Harvey is the heaviest rain event I've ever experienced. Nothing quite like it.

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Has the NHC improved its forecasts? Or did they just get lucky this time?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/27/national-hurricane-center-forecast-laura/ 


National Hurricane Center nailed track forecast for Laura within a mile and 3 days in advance

By Jason Samenow

Three and a half days before Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron, La., the National Hurricane Center predicted where it would come ashore within 0.6 miles. Not only did it peg the location near the Texas-Louisiana border but it forecast the exact hour it would cross the coastline: 2 a.m. Eastern.

In the days between that forecast and when the storm roared inland, the Hurricane Center barely wavered from its prediction, even as hundreds of computer model simulations forecast landfall locations as far-flung as Florida and Mexico.

Its precision forecast, made while Laura was still over Haiti, left meteorologists outside the agency in awe.

“The folks at the National Hurricane Center are so damn good at their job,” tweeted Dakota Smith, a meteorologist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere.

“Just want to give a shout out to @NHC_Atlantic [the National Hurricane Center] and @NHC_Surge for the job they did w/ Laura. Lives were no doubt saved because of their efforts,” tweeted Matt Lanza, a meteorologist for SpaceCityWeather.com, a weather blog for the Houston area.

NHC's 3.5-day forecast for #Laura landfall was off by ~1 km. wow. https://t.co/RCnBnYQVSm pic.twitter.com/f1wmsQynAZ

— Jay Cordeira (@jaycordeira) August 27, 2020

Even when the vaunted European computer model, the most accurate on average, suggested the storm would veer to the west and strike near Houston, the Hurricane Center didn’t flinch.

On Twitter, the Hurricane Center was the target of criticism and second-guessing when it didn’t shift its track forecast to place Houston and areas farther south under a hurricane warning.

“I saw a lot of comments online about not moving the track westward near Houston when this ECMWF [European model] ensemble plot came out,” tweeted Eric Blake, a forecaster at the Hurricane Center.

Blake said forecasters at the Hurricane Center knew the model “had been struggling this year (and with Laura) and adjusted accordingly.”

I should add that I’m not picking on EC here. But you just can’t blindly follow a model because of historical performance. Forecasters knew it had been struggling this year (and with Laura) and adjusted accordingly.

— Eric Blake

Forecasts get better every year

Question for weather people ... are you familiar with ventusky? I stumbled on this recently and while I have no idea if it is a good weather tool for normal folks, it is really pretty. They have an app but I have been playing with the website.

Most of the data in there means nothing to me but watching the swirling wind currents and all the pretty colors is kind of hypnotic. And I have looked up some of the terminology to try to understand what I am seeing.  Just curious if this is strictly entertainment or there is value there too.

HatsOff said:

Question for weather people ... are you familiar with ventusky? I stumbled on this recently and while I have no idea if it is a good weather tool for normal folks, it is really pretty. They have an app but I have been playing with the website.

Most of the data in there means nothing to me but watching the swirling wind currents and all the pretty colors is kind of hypnotic. And I have looked up some of the terminology to try to understand what I am seeing.  Just curious if this is strictly entertainment or there is value there too.

 that's pretty cool. If I'm reading it right, it looks like rain is coming from the south.

drummerboy said:

 that's pretty cool. If I'm reading it right, it looks like rain is coming from the south.

 I think it is pretty fascinating. Just don't know if it is good info or not.

seems to be pretty legit. maybe max or wxnut can weigh in.

HatsOff said:

Question for weather people ... are you familiar with ventusky? I stumbled on this recently and while I have no idea if it is a good weather tool for normal folks, it is really pretty. They have an app but I have been playing with the website.

Most of the data in there means nothing to me but watching the swirling wind currents and all the pretty colors is kind of hypnotic. And I have looked up some of the terminology to try to understand what I am seeing.  Just curious if this is strictly entertainment or there is value there too.

 WOW. Had never seen this before but it looks awesome. Really cool visualizations. 

sac said:

yahooyahoo said:

The petrochemical industry on the gulf coast has been effectively shut down (temporarily) several times in the past. I think the last time was with Harvey in 2017.

The disaster mentioned would not be prevented by shutting things down.  It could include the storm surge combined with high winds destroying or uplifting tanks and other refinery/chem plant components containing hazardous materials, with massive pollution as well as a potential tsunami-like rush of water with broken up pieces of equipment and storage tanks slamming against anything in its path - both on its way inland and then back out, along the 50-ish mile corridor between Galveston and downtown Houston as well as potentionally well beyond the center of Houston (as was the case with Harvey for the floodwaters.)

(Harvey's landfall was near Corpus Christi - about 200 miles down the coast from Galveston.)

I don't mean a planned shut down ahead of time. I mean the storms did serious damage and the petrochemical industry effectively came to a stop because of the damage.