The Weather (2017)

[imref]

here's some amazing coast guard video of the flooding in the Houston area:

https://twitter.com/USCGHeartland/status/901912365402337280/video/1

[skippy1999]

I normally love watching storm coverage but my heart hurts every time I see these poor people, they are truly screwed for a while there

[Slateman]

I normally love watching storm coverage but my heart hurts every time I see these poor people, they are truly screwed for a while there

I mean, they were in Texas, so they were already screwed

[imref]

I mean, they were in Texas, so they were already screwed

A saw a couple of interviews with folks who moved to Houston in the wake of Katrina to start new lives after losing their homes.  Terribly sad.

[Slateman]

A saw a couple of interviews with folks who moved to Houston in the wake of Katrina to start new lives after losing their homes.  Terribly sad.

A lot of people did that. Most of them simply evacuated New Orleans and never left.

[imref]

A lot of people did that. Most of them simply evacuated New Orleans and never left.

do you mean "never returned?"

[Slateman]

do you mean "never returned?"

Never left Houston.

[skippy1999]

yea we have a ton of New Orleans refugees in Pensacola, a couple attorneys at my firm as a matter of fact, I can't imagine having it happen to you twice in one lifetime

[Slateman]

yea we have a ton of New Orleans refugees in Pensacola, a couple attorneys at my firm as a matter of fact, I can't imagine having it happen to you twice in one lifetime

Uh .... they still lived in a flood plain. Not sure why you wouldn't expect it to happen again. It's not like Houston doesn't get hit by storms.

[skippy1999]

Uh .... they still lived in a flood plain. Not sure why you wouldn't expect it to happen again. It's not like Houston doesn't get hit by storms.

Just stop, they've had more rain than EVER in anywhere in the US, no where would be able to handle that. 

[bluestreak]

Too bad it seems like the mayor is going the gets raked through the coals over it

There wasn't an evacuation called for and the Mayor is generally getting Kudos. The evacuation for Hurricane Rita was a disaster and over 100 people died due to the evacuation.

One thing that is overlooked when calling for these evacuations. For a city this large, there is rarely enough gasoline to facilitate everyone actually getting out. 

[imref]

There wasn't an evacuation called for and the Mayor is generally getting Kudos. The evacuation for Hurricane Rita was a disaster and over 100 people died due to the evacuation.

One thing that is overlooked when calling for these evacuations. For a city this large, there is rarely enough gasoline to facilitate everyone actually getting out. 

Yep.  Go back and look through this thread, 3 days out and the forecast was for at most, 20" of rain.  Definitely a problem, but not one that justifies evacuating millions of people.  And even if they tried to evacuate, like you said, the logistics would have been nearly impossible.

[imref]

The NWS had to add new colors to its rain chart to deal with Harvey.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

apocalyptic 

 

[imref]

CWG is doing a Reddit AMA tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10 AM: https://www.reddit.com/r/TropicalWeather/comments/6wvwth/harvey_aftermath_remnants_and_discussion_thread/?st=j6ycmyl8&sh=b1ba86e4

[GuyFromCO]

I mean, they were in Texas, so they were already screwed

freak off

[imref]

This was prescient:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/03/22/gulf-of-mexico-waters-are-freakishly-warm-which-could-mean-explosive-springtime-storms/

[imref]

Might as well start panicking now.  Here's the European model showing Cat 5 Hurricane Irma next Friday.  But relax, the model also shows it curving out to sea.  Still, keep your eye on this one.

[Minty Fresh]

Anyone checked in on skippy?  Pensacola looks like it's received a lot of rain over the past 12 hours...

[skippy1999]

Anyone checked in on skippy?  Pensacola looks like it's received a lot of rain over the past 12 hours...

aww thanks for looking out Minty but we're good, lots or rain but there are breaks between the downpours thankfully!

[imref]

aww thanks for looking out Minty but we're good, lots or rain but there are breaks between the downpours thankfully!

Glad to hear your are OK Skippy!

[imref]

This isn't good:

http://www.khou.com/weather/harvey/crosby-chemical-plant-at-risk-of-fire-explosion/469003777

[imref]

Bloomberg has a good article on how global warming could be shaping storms like Harvey.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/harvey-shows-how-planetary-winds-are-shifting

The questions scientists are now asking about stalling storms aren’t along the lines of “did climate change cause the hurricane?” Climate change didn’t cause the hurricane. But today’s warmer water and more humid air provided it with rocket fuel, making it more intense, and humanity did conjure those conditions. For more on that, see Politico, Vox, Climate Home, or the Washington Post.

Instead, the experts are asking how huge, “dynamic” atmospheric systems may be changing, at least indirectly, because of humanity’s prodigious greenhouse gas pollution. So, a better question might be, “Does humanity have anything to do with summertime Northern Hemisphere storms that are prevented from moving off because of changes in the jet stream?” The answer is there’s not enough evidence in yet.

Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, published an essay Monday in which, among items better understood about hurricanes and warming, he included:

“More tenuous, but possibly relevant still, is the fact that very persistent, nearly ‘stationary’ summer weather patterns of this sort, where weather anomalies [...] stay locked in place for many days at a time, appears to be favoured by human-caused climate change.”

In March, Mann and several colleagues published a study in the journal Scientific Reports that demonstrates a relationship between extreme events, such as the 2011 Texas drought and 2010 Pakistan flooding, and a rare stationary phase that upper atmospheric currents sometimes go through in the mid-latitudes.

The jet stream winds around the Northern Hemisphere, set in motion by the Earth's rotation. Some researchers have documented wider north-south meanders in the jet stream, which can trap and hold extreme weather events in place for days or weeks.SOURCE: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author of that paper and head of Earth Systems Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, explained that there may really be several things going on. In general, the jet stream, the high-flying river of air that flows west-to-east, has slowed and gone all wavy in recent summers, with pronounced north-south meanders. That’s one thing that may have helped hold Harvey in place. Researchers have sparred since 2012 over whether Arctic warming, which is occurring at twice the global average, is driving this atmospheric wobble, consequently creating more opportunities for persistent weather farther south.

In a number of extreme cases analyzed by their paper—California drought, Russia’s 2010 heatwave and Pakistan’s related flood—the meandering north-south river of the jet-stream stabilizes for periods of time in some places, creating an insurmountable wavelike band. The researchers looked for some kind of misbehavior in atmospheric circulation after realizing that heat-related effects alone couldn’t explain the extreme nature of some disasters.

Not everybody’s sold on either the general jet-stream wobbliness from a warming Arctic, or the stabilizing atmospheric waves described by Mann, Rahmstorf, and colleagues. “It’s still controversial,” Sobel said. Even Mann, the lead-author, introduced the pattern as “tenuous,” and Rahmstorf said that more real-world case studies and more years of observations are needed.

With Houston still under siege and the hurricane season still churning, the thought of more case studies is the last thing anybody wants to consider. And yet, just as it took decades to prove climate change, time and more studies will likely show whether humans have gone beyond global warming, and in fact changed which way the wind blows.

[Slateman]

Anyone checked in on skippy?  Pensacola looks like it's received a lot of rain over the past 12 hours...

aww thanks for looking out Minty but we're good, lots or rain but there are breaks between the downpours thankfully!

Might want to start prepping: https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/08/30/tropical-storm-irma-forms/616055001/

[imref]

Might want to start prepping: https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/08/30/tropical-storm-irma-forms/616055001/

Only if Skippy is planning to be in Bermuda next weekend.