At noon 8/28/11 PST, I’ve discontinued this thread as a “top post” on WUWT.
NOTE: New posts will appear below this one while Irene is in play.
UPDATE: at 5PM EST 8/28 Irene is a tropical storm with sustained winds of 50mph. See updated bulletin 34 below
New exclusive high definition tracking map added to our Tropical Storm Reference Page.
Here’s the latest imagery below, which will automatically update every 30 minutes:
Here is link to Ryan Maue’s FSU model page, which updates GFS, NAM, HWRF, GFDL, NOGAPS, ECMWF, and CMC throughout the day. Example here is the NAM-WRF 4-km high-resolution simulated radar (60-hour forecast): watch the eye size grow and the fronts move by, and the daytime seabreeze showers…
Here’s more, storm tracks and wind probabilities for south Florida and US East Coast:
Track Hurricane Irene on your PC in radar and satellite imagery – click the animation
BULLETIN TROPICAL STORM IRENE ADVISORY NUMBER 34 NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL092011 500 PM EDT SUN AUG 28 2011 ...CENTER OF IRENE NEARING NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND... SUMMARY OF 500 PM EDT...2100 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...42.7N 72.8W ABOUT 65 MI...100 KM S OF RUTLAND VERMONT MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...50 MPH...85 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 26 MPH...43 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...975 MB...28.79 INCHES WATCHES AND WARNINGS -------------------- CHANGES IN WATCHES AND WARNINGS WITH THIS ADVISORY... NONE. SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT... A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR... * CAPE HENLOPEN DELAWARE NORTHWARD TO EASTPORT MAINE...INCLUDING DELAWARE BAY...NEW YORK CITY...LONG ISLAND...LONG ISLAND SOUND... COASTAL CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND...BLOCK ISLAND...MARTHAS VINEYARD AND NANTUCKET * UNITED STATES/CANADA BORDER NORTHEASTWARD TO FORT LAWRENCE INCLUDING GRAND MANAN * SOUTH COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA FROM FORT LAWRENCE TO PORTERS LAKE INTERESTS ELSEWHERE IN EASTERN CANADA SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF IRENE. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA IN THE UNITED STATES...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICE. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE. DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK ------------------------------ AT 500 PM EDT...2100 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM IRENE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 42.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 72.8 WEST. IRENE IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 26 MPH...43 KM/H...AND THIS MOTION WITH A LITTLE FASTER FORWARD SPEED IS EXPECTED OVER THE NEXT DAY OR SO. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...THE CENTER OF IRENE WILL MOVE OVER EASTERN CANADA TONIGHT AND EARLY MONDAY. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE DECREASED TO NEAR 50 MPH...85 KM/H... WITH HIGHER GUSTS...MAINLY OVER OR NEAR THE WATER WELL EAST OF THE CENTER. IRENE IS FORECAST TO WEAKEN AND BECOME A POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE BY TONIGHT. TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 320 MILES...520 KM FROM THE CENTER. A WIND GUST OF 67 MPH...108 KM/H...WAS REPORTED FROM AN UNOFFICIAL SITE NEAR HYANNIS PORT MASSACHUSETTS. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 975 MB...28.79 INCHES.
They have just ordered a mandatory evac of Ocean City MD and I live 5.5 miles west of that and only half a mile from one of the back bays. So I am not worrying about Irene, I’m packing up and getting ready to move out.
Bennett says:
August 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm
@richard Keen
Thanks, Richard, that was fascinating to read. I wonder if it will arrive in the NYC area during a high or low tide? The thought of a 30′ storm surge during a high tide would certainly keep me away from the subways.
I was just wondering that myself, so I had a look at the tide times for Long Beach:
http://www.mobilegeographics.com:81/locations/3406.html
Extrapolate that to the 28th and you get a high tide around 2pm. Look where the ‘H’ symbol is at 2pm on Sunday in the forecast track at the top…
Poo.
Hi Bennett,
I was wondering that myself, so I checked the tide times for Long Island. At 2pm, when the track forecast at the top of this page has an ‘H’ just by Long Island on Sunday, is low tide. Should be a very helpful mitigating factor in what’s still going to be a nasty scene.
Bennett says:
August 25, 2011 at 6:53 am
@Ric Werme:
> You should get quite an event if the track holds. I’m going to park my vehicles away from the big old maple trees Sunday through Tuesday…
I’m beginning to feel like a squirrel unsure of which way to run. The 1700 EDT forecast moved the track to the Connecticut River between NH and VT, but a private forecaster who used to come up with wonderfully detailed analyses thinks it’s an over reaction or should have been the morning forecast and shifted back this afternoon. (I.e. back to aimed at me).
The Concord area is far enough from the coast that the wind won’t be too extreme, though I’m thinking of doing some work to make sure Internet access stays up as long as possible if we lose power, a distinct possibility.
I have some childhood connections to Long Beach Island off new Jersey, I’ll be watching that closely Sunday PM. I think my daughter in MD will be fine. She gets to see it during daylight.
One good thing – my camera from 2003 died a few weeks ago. It’s replacement arrived today.
Question:
Why does the hurricane speed up? The image shows it travels a longer distance with each subsequent 24hrs.
Another question:
I remember from early this year with the talk on the hurricane that hit the Australian east coast that one issue raised was the speed at which the hurricane was moving. From memory I think one of the reasons given why the damage was less than expected is that the hurricane didn’t linger too long over any particular area. How fast is Irene moving and is this going to affect the level of damage it might cause?
Irene has the potential to produce life threatening conditions over an extensive section of the US East Coast. Hurricanes are unpredicatable and often threaten impending disaster but pass with out serious consequence. However, failure to take action and provide proper notification for a storm as dangerous as Irene can give rise to devastating results.
I think the media needs to be all over this. You can’t leave evacuations til the last moment when your talking about heavily populated areas potentially affected. Carrying out mass evacuations take time and planning.
Whilst crying wolf when there is no wolf could never be justified, crying wolf when theres one in the vicinity that poses a danger should never be criticised.
Ric Werme says:
August 25, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Yeah, the wife is worried but that’s her nature. I tell her that there’s only a 30% chance of strong winds at this point, but that the local NPR meteorologist mentioned the possibility of 6″ of rain in a 12 hour window. Thankfully I’m pretty elevated, but the long gravel driveway could suffer. I’ll cut it for drainage and hope for the best.
I wish I could ensure a connection to the net, but my setup doesn’t allow for it. I do look forward to seeing your photos!
Cheers,
Bennett in NW-VT
Keith says:
August 25, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Hi Keith,
I found the tide charts for Pimlico, SC and they are low at noon and “very high” at 6:30 PM. So it’ll be a potential problem for parts of North Carolina.
I wish everyone affected by this a good deal of luck, let’s hope Long Island is spared a huge storm surge.
Bennett
I live on Long Island and have lived through big storms before but is Algore visiting here this week? Just asking
Just a curiosity, today on msnbc Bill McKibben said that because of the record warm water along the coast that Irene’s middle name is “global warming”.
By all means please ensure your safety and that of family and pets. Sorry if my earlier post was obnoxious. I likely was oversensitive to the VA quake flurry of coverage. Fingers crossed for a big turn eastward and a fizzling out…
Last few frames here show eye moving north east! Maybe that’s a good sign.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t2/flash-rgb.html
Global warming, global cooling…all get blamed for weather. Here’s Time magazines take on it when the world was in the grip of the global cooling fever (June 24, 1974):
“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds — the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa’s drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest’s recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
…Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.”
So, global cooling also causes violent storms and tornadoes in the USA. The last paragraph is interesting in light of the CLOUD results. A 1% decrease in sunlight reaching the earth’s surface is a ‘tipping point’. All this stuff sounds so familiar: just change the odd word and it’s the global warming meme.
HR says:
August 25, 2011 at 5:43 pm
> Question:
> Why does the hurricane speed up? The image shows it travels a longer distance with each subsequent 24hrs.
This is typical when tropical storms get north of New Jersey or so. The jet stream above us starts dragging the storm northeast and they can really haul out by the time the remnants get to the maritimes.
With the high forward motion, the surface winds to the left of the track are significantly less than to the right. OTOH, there’s generally more rain to the left, especially if the storm merges with a weather front or has higher ground to enhance uplift.
South facing New England and Long Island can really get clobbered to the east of landfall thanks to wind and storm surge.
…… It’s Global Warmin’ wot dun it….. It caused New York’s earthquake too…;-)
Heard it weakened slightly this morning to a Cat2 with 110 mph winds.
Weakened yet again to 105 MPH. It must because of that “bizarrely high” SST that Jeff Masters says exist.
Yesterday the models proclaimed this storm would be a Cat-4. How did that work out? It doesn’t take a meteorologist to know if the ocean temperatures are much cooler this year than last year that it likely won’t get to Cat-4 strength that far north. Yesterday the models said this would be a strong Cat-3 hurricane over North Carolina. This morning the model said the storm would be a weak Cat-3 hurricane. Now the models are saying a strong Cat-2. Look at the ocean temperatures! They are cooler!
Since 95 mph is the highest Cat1 and 115 is the lowest Cat3, 105 is right in pretty near the middle of Cat2. Given the downward trend, the “worst ever” prognostications are starting to sound a bit silly.
What is up with the MSM, anyway? I agree that people should take Hurricanes seriously and GET OUT, but is using false alarmist predictions the best way to achieve that result? Won’t the long term loss of credibility lead to future refusals to heed serious warnings? This is a “boy who cried wolf” problem.
thanks Ric
12Z GFS shows it pretty strong in NYC.
http://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-natlsfc.php?run=2011082612&time=INSTANT&var=PRMSL&hour=051
Check out the rest of InstantWeatherMaps.com too… it’s by far the most impressive GFS map site I’ve seen (in addition to their huge selection, they put out most maps within 1-10 seconds of the raw data being on the NCEP server… by comparison, the second fastest I’ve seen has about a 2 minute delay).
My wife’s sister in Newport, NC, is leaving her manufactured home there for a motel about 7 miles north, in Havelock, with a friend from the outer banks, and her little dog. Hoping for the best. Glad to hear it has weakened somewhat. Better to over-prepare than under.
Stupid question here–but how much do or can cloud cover and wind/wave action ahead of the storm’s track de-fuel it by cooling SST’s?
So far good- Cooler air and ocean. I cannot abide the hysteria. The MSM in particular does
no one a service by “THE WORST EVVEERR!” scare bylines.. The warmists are largely to
blame: “Praise Gaia! and her Profit! the oracles have spoken! Cat Four! No,CatThree!
No wait! ” “Get that little dog out of here! pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Unless it makes a big turn to the east, the latest satellite loops show it smacking into the southern coast of NC. My guess is that it will lose a bit of energy as it encounters the NC coast. However, it will still be a big rain and flooding threat as it approaches the northeast. I’m still planning on taking appropriate precautions here in New Hampshire.