Need I say anymore? As Neil Frank once told me..." these are storms that we (NHC) wouldn't have named when I was the Director." As I have mentioned before, with such a deep upper east coast trough in place, TD 16 was more like a "hybrid system", or more like a winter Nor'Easter. That's what is likely to go up the East Coast tomorrow and on Friday. It is dumping more heavy rainfall on the Carolinas with some totals for the week now approaching 20 inches ! Luckily, we are on the dry side of the upper trough.
In the short term, the next 5-7 days will see no major changes...staying dry with comfy cool nights and sunny, warm days.
11 comments:
WAY back when Neil was the director of the NHC they didn't have what they have today as far as advancements in technology to be able to name storms quicker rather than being forced to wait before naming a storm. Neil did the samething as director. I remember in mid Sept of 85 he named a system a depression then the next day Tropical storm Gloria and less than 24 hrs later it was a depression again. The system did become a hurricane which he called the "Storm of the Century" but upon landfall all it did was knock down a bunch of trees and take out power... with just one death from a tree falling.
Neil experienced and did the sameting the current director is doing. Perhaps, as is the case with many news items in today's world, the media (and the public they serve) is often too eager to receive "the latest" information, before waiting too see if the information being reported is accurate, or, is just a mirage, and, as a result, organizations such as the NHC are feeling the pressure to respond by upgrading a tropical disturbance or depression, before feeling completely confident that the advisory they are issuing is an advisory that represents what is actually taking place... This was very true with Neil which was very evident from him constantly wanting to be in front of the camera even before he moved to Houston to do weather for a TV station.
CAVEMAN...thanks for the lecture. What you say is partly correct regarding the technology, but in the case of Nicole I agree & believe they were more influenced by the media plus Nicole's nearness to South Florida. I also believe NHC is rather quick to pull the trigger on naming storms. Media pressure? Sure, but I'd rather be right than 1st, especially if the info proves marginally correct at best.
Oh I think the media and NHC are so mad we didnt have a major hurricane directly hit the United States....I think it makes them so mad....GOOD!!! The national media is always looking for something to report since most networks are looking for viewers.
Hmmm...Always someone here to buck the system.
Meanwhile swimming is officially over for the season....looked at the pool temp yesterday and it was a cool 77 degrees...and with no heater...like we need one done here...swimming is done for 2010...
Come on Cool fronts...should be a great weekend for Football....Go Saints...
I would hope that the NHC people are professionals and would not be angry over whether there is or is not a major hurricane threatening the continental U.S. though I don't doubt that some of the amateurs out there who seem to revel in the "excitement" of tracking a storm and telling everyone how terrible it's going to be are disappointed.
What made me the angriest was once when Hurricane Gustave was in the Gulf was someone saying that they were hoping that it would hit New Orleans and finish off what was not destroyed already and that New Orleans should not be rebuilt.
The thinking persists that New Orleans is completely uniquely vulnerable among all U.S. locales and anyone living here is stupid and lazy or criminal with no consideration to the fact of the flooding having been caused by the failure of hte levees that the Corps of Engineers built.
Hey, it's October 2nd. Where's that big, bad storm that's supposed to be on our doorstep?
People blaming the Corps of Engineers are simply looking for an easy scape goat. Could they have done a better job? Sure but there is only so much man can do to hold off mother nature. You got to remember they didn't build the levee system and then tell everyone to move below sea-level and they would guarantee their safety. Levee system was built after the fact in an attempt to provide some kind of protection for those that decided to live below sea-level.
Actually, it was not so much that mother nature in 2005 overwhelmed the city and could not be held off -- the eye made landfall near Waveland, MS -- and if the levees that the Corps built had been constructed properly then there would have been much less of a flooding problem in 2005.
Moreover, there was the role played by the MR-GO canal in actually funneling the storm surge to St. Bernard and to the Industrial Canal which was actually the first place where levees around the city failed.
Finally, is it right to be preaching about living where there might be hurricanes? I believe that that isn't right. How about places where there might be earthquakes, a danger to which very much of the country is vulnerable? How about pure old-fashioned river flooding in the midwest (remember 1993?)? Heck, how about the 1927 floods and the aftermath of those? Do we say that the Bonnet Carre spillway is not be trusted and depended on in times of danger? No, of course not. Unfortunately there was the major catastrophe that gave impetus to the project but the spillway has worked well and continues to do so and few people worry about the danger of river flooding these days.
You do know that Corp didn't just jump and say hey let's build New Orleans a short cut to the Gulf! Nope, in fact many city leaders and officials from Port of New Orleans went to DC to lobby Congress to build it. New Orleans asked for and wanted the MR-GO.
"A 2006 study by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources found that the southeast – northwest channel of the MRGO from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) to the Gulf of Mexico does not contribute significantly to peak storm surge during severe storms where the wetland system is overwhelmed with water, and that closure in this section of the channel will not provide significant, direct mitigation of severe hurricane storm surge. An investigation by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) concluded in a draft final report (https://ipet.wes.army.mil) that storm surge and waves that inundated levees along the MRGO and surrounding area would have come from nearby Lake Borgne instead of up the channel from the Gulf of Mexico."
Cave man, you are so correct.. The MRGO had nothing to do with the flooding and or storm surge. When the water comes up 3or 4 foot, Which is not much, all the marsh is under water. At that point, water is coming from all directions. The MRGO was just a scape goat and now that it is closed, it's causing major problems. For every action, there is a reaction. I heard that they are trying to get it opened back up. Sure hope they do!
Yeah what a bunch of fools being born and raised in a low lying area that's prone to flooding and "protected" by levees. Don't those morons realize that they should leave their families behind move somewhere that isn't susceptible to natural disasters?
Don't even get me started on the people whose companies relocate them here for business. They should refuse to move here and if necessary quite their jobs if their company insists.
Sarcasm is intended here to mask the irritation. I've had the good fortune to travel and live in many areas of the country. I have never lived in place that WAS NOT prone to some type of natural disaster. Moreover, I have yet to hear anyone offer any kind of solution when they begin their "you people shouldn't be living there" rhetoric.
It appears highly doubtful that re-opening the MR-GO is anywhere in the cards.
Even if the wall closing it off were torn down tomorrow there's a good question as to whether it would even be usable given the effects from Hurricane Katrina surge. There would have to be a tremendous amount of dredging done.
Another question is the economic usefulness when few vessels were using it.
Sure, the Corps built the project because some people had the idea way back when that doing so would make the port of New Orleans more competitive with other ports and allow for economic development. Did it ever really deliver on those grounds and by comparison to the cost to maintain it and the environmental headaches it caused?
Again, levees that were not well constructed played a role in the problem. The MR-GO of 2005 was significantly different and much wider from what was planned and designed in the 1950's on account of severe bank erosion.
The question is that if the MR-GO had not been quite so wide then would the failure of the levees of the Industrial Canal that caused much of the flooding in the city brought on by so much pressure which was being delivered directly by the MR-GO still have happened?
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