The track models have all been pointing to the Gulf coast rather than central Florida, this plot of 10 meter wind velocity through August 31st is from WeatherBell’s newly setup HWRF model website by hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue:
The brown colors near the eye indicate sustained wind speeds of 100 to 130 knots (115 to 150 mph). That would make Isaac likely a category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall, with likely higher gusts. The track takes it across the Florida keys, near Ft. Meyers, FL, and onto the Gulf Coast. It is expected to intensify in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico once it clears the west coast of Florida. The turn towards the NNE isn’t forecast to happen until after landfall in the model.
UPDATE: The new forecast for today has lower wind speeds and the track has shifted west to the delta of the Mississippi river:
Here’s a more detailed closeup 4 panel model view for the time Isaac is forecast to make landfall:
And here is the update for today:
Obviously a lot can change, but this bears watching and getting out of the way of. I’ll have updates to this page soon, and an Isaac reference page will be setup on WUWT for keeping track of it.
Rainfall from Isaac looks to be between 10 and 20 inches along its path:
here’s the update for Sunday, about the same, but in the worst place possible:
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has been looking at some damage model estimates earlier today and writes:
The median historical damage from this set of analogue storms is $1.6 billion, with an incredibly wide range. Currently the NHC projects Issac to make landfall along the Gulf coast as a category 2 storm. There are 5 historical analogues in the set above with normalized damage ranging $1 billion (Georges, 1998) to $4.4 billion (Gustav, 2008). Category 3 and 4 storms have resulted in much higher damage. I’ll update these numbers as Issac gets closer to the Gulf Coast.
I forgot to write:
I believe in Anthony Watts and Judith Curry and, oh so much, I believe in the simple sincere, but dogged pitbull — for over a decade — Steve McIntyre.
If it were not for McIntyre’s patient, steady persistence, The Team and all its minions would never have been netted. Oh, and McKitrick’s preeetty cool, too.
And a toast to Mark Steyn! Who else would have thought of calling ole Dr. Mann, “ringmaster of a tree-ring circus?”
I just hope that The White Hats don’t lose it, now, imposing govt morality on women’s medical decisions. Your “beliefs” should be private, between you and *your* God. This isn’t science.
…Lady in Red
Are there not other blogs where Isaac is not discussed in favor of topics more controversial? Or perhaps use the telephone or meet at a bar and rant at one another. Thanks.
Katrina anyone, I live in Gulfport, did back then, really hoping this takes the eastern most track
We have a right to food, a roof over our head, transportation, medical care and 40 inch TV’s, regardless, prepaid. You other guys get with the program!
I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast for over 50 years, and hunkered down through any number of hurricanes. The hysteria that precedes them, as a general rule, far outweighs the actual damage.
Katrina was a devastating storm, crushing Mississippi and Louisiana, just like Camille 35 years before. There is no indication yet that Isaac will acquire the type of energy of a small powerful wind storm like Camille, or a large powerful water storm like Katrina.
Frequently more people die in the evacuation or the aftermath than in the storm. Remember, the levies broke in New Orleans AFTER Katrina passed. People should follow the official posture which is run from water, and shelter from wind. The storm surge of a typical category 1 or 2 hurricane is 5 to 8 feet or so and in a very small localized area, especially when compared to the large size of the storm viewed from space. The lack of power and the disruption from moving everything inside for protection, picking up limbs, cutting and removing trees, and taking everything back outside, lasts for a day to a week again over a relatively small area. Inland tornadoes, generally small (albeit devastating) and local flooding from rain are an issue.
There is no reason to panic or over-analyze this storm. Watch it, prepare for it, and be ready to pitch in for the cleanup.
If you go to Weather Underground, they use 6 models and show the average position/track from the six. But if you click on the map with the individual models you see that four of them track much closer to New Orleans and the other two are outliers. As I recall, the UKMET is not a very good model anyway. So several of the best models track it further west as does a good european model that does not want its forecasts used or linked to other webpages but will give it on their own website and release the occasional track to the Weather channel.
So it looks like it will go further west. Hopefully if it stays moving fast it can’t intensify much.
We’ll know much better this afternoon I think (Sun. aft.)
Paul Coppin made a good point. There is no way that Helene and Joyce should have been named storms for at most 6 hours before they fell below criteria.
Lady in Red, your last post is good except for your last paragraph. This isn’t the place to troll about your personal philosophies that have nothing to do with climate or climate policy.
I will plug my nose as I vote the Republican ticket (Obama made me change from a life-long dem to a registered independent). And then I will fight tooth and toenail to keep nosy guvmnt carpet baggers out of my bedroom, womb, and pew, and any other private medical, spiritual belief, or coupling decision I make, whether others think those decisions are my right or not to make. It especially rankles me when a man, not of my immediate family, tries to tell me what to do regarding those private decisions. If elected, and Mitt and Paul try to do that, I will be as disappointed in them as I am in Obama. And I am DEEPLY disappointed in Obama.
Do we need to force both parties to rid themselves of private decision planks, from light bulbs to sexual positions? We may have to so they will focus on the economy and putting the federal government back to what it was originally designed to do. It certainly did not come into my great-great grandmother’s bedroom, pew, or sick room to tell her what to do. Hell, not too long ago we pledged allegiance to the flag and just the flag, not someone’s concept of being “under God” like we now do.
If I have to, I will throw some tea into the Boston harbor in the middle of that hurricane!!!!!
Twiggy says:
August 26, 2012 at 6:08 am
On Geo Sat it looks like it doesn’t have a chance to regain much energy, a lot like Irene last fall.
Irene was a coast crawling rain maker (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092011_Irene.pdf ) Isaac once it clears Cuba has a long track over warm water with upper level winds that will allow development. If you look instead at GOES East Infrared imagery http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/flash-rb.html – you will see the sudden upsurge in infrared as the convection is starting to increase in the Florida Straits (all that latent heat being released). It is better to prepare for a Cat 5 and get a Cat 1, than have a hurricane party and have to fight for survival. Anyone from Tallahassee to Lafayette needs to watch this storm carefully. It is not small – the center of circulation is currently just North of Cuba but the leading edge squall lines are already up to Orlando and the central Florida East coast.
For those interested the actual energy removed from the ocean and released as latent heat by cloud rain formation by one hurricane in one day is “equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity”. This is by far the engine and main energy of a hurricane. But there is also the kinetic energy generated per day again taken from the ocean heat – “This is equivalent to about half the world-wide electrical generating capacity”
From NOAA FAQ at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/D7.html
I’ve been watching these storms since the early 50s. My prediction is the eye of the storm (or center, if there is no eye) will come ashore just east of Mobile Bay. BUT, the tracking has been moving steadily west over the last few days. If this continues happening it’s bad news for New Orleans. Any other predictions as to where the eye of the storm will cross from you experts?
I am still clueless and confused as to why we as an ” Intelligent ” species refuses to learn from past disasters and without fail will rebuild in the very same place natural disasters tend to strike. I like to think that I have a level of compassion that is comparable or higher then most but in these cases I am really starting to believe that a Darwin approach should prevail or at the very least if you choose to be stupid please don’t make me financially responsible for your poor choices.
To: GOP
Re: Lady in Red
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
J. Philip Peterson says:
August 26, 2012 at 8:30 am
I’ve been watching these storms since the early 50s. My prediction is the eye of the storm (or center, if there is no eye) will come ashore just east of Mobile Bay. BUT, the tracking has been moving steadily west over the last few days. If this continues happening it’s bad news for New Orleans. Any other predictions as to where the eye of the storm will cross from you experts?
I am not an expert – just someone who is living in the line of fire 😉 so I tend to watch carefully. But if you look at these web pages:
http://icons-ak.wunderground.com/data/images/at201209_model.gif
http://www.sfwmd.gov/sfwmd/common/images/weather/plots/storm_09
http://icons-ak.wunderground.com/data/images/at201209_ensmodel.gif
Unless something changes New Orleans to Biloxi look like they may get a Katrina encore but from a worse direction.
This is a hurricane? I had to double check the ‘track’ against satellite imagery as it is not all that evident on the WV or IR satellite loops this morning (Sunday 11:51 EDT) …
WV loop –
http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/satellite/displaySat.php?region=US&itype=wv&size=large&endDate=20120826&endTime=-1&duration=8
Lady in Red @ur momisugly 7:35 pm on August the 25th:
Whatever are you talking about?
seven years ago the 1st storm I followed became Katrina on my then new snail-pace dial up net……
after 3 net=free years I sign up for mobile tortoise broadband and started by following a storm that had not yet become 9 and is now Isaac.!!!!! deja voodoo as they might say ..
glad I live in N. Ireland…on a drumlin… waiting for the next ice-age.!!!!
@Lady in Red.
Just FYI, don’t believe everything you see/read.
REPUBLICAN WOMEN FOR OBAMA? [UPDATED: ANOTHER FAKE “REPUBLICAN” EXPOSED]
http://WWW.POWERLINEBLOG.COM/ARCHIVES/2012/08/REPUBLICAN-WOMEN-FOR-OBAMA.PHP
“I had thought it would have been sensible to dig canals between all the flooded 9th Ward houses use the earth that was dug out to raise the houses and then you have water front property above sea level with roads in front and canals behind. The canals would slow and dissipate storm surges protecting the other parts of New Orleans. It would have led to a big jump in land and house values and have brought more builders in. ”
-You just made a good description of how it is done in Florida.
And to your credit…is Fla real estate successful? Oh yeah.
Ray Nagin wants to evacuate New Orleans. Evacuate himself. (sarcasm)
My farm is in a geographical niche never hit by a hurricane according to local lore, but over the mountains they have struck. Devastation is hard to categorize since hits occurred miles apart by distinct hurricanes years apart.
Best of luck to all at landfall from wind & with the ensuing rain. Issac in the Bible came to his aged parents & means “he laughs” – hope it’s lighthearted this time.
Jeff D @ur momisugly 8:40am — They keep rebuilding there because the entire US economy relies on there being a port city at the end of the river, and the spot where NOLA sits is the best place to put one.
Lady in Red says:
August 25, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Lady,
Have a cup of coffee… and rethink your screed.
This is an inappropriate venue for abortion discussions other than to acknowledge that, regardless of how a child was/is conceived, the child is the blameless innocent.
MtK
You guys are pissin’ me off.
I don’t *care* if the Repubs lose the election. Hell, I don’t care if they all die in Tampa, in Isaac.
They may do what they wish.
My (silent) prayer was merely that the damn ole men (and women?) re-thunk the GOP position about forcing women to birth, about a damn Const. Amendment (or clawing back women’s rights, state by state).
*I* just re-thunk. I *do* care if Republicans, libertarians to come, lose. I fear it is likely to happen. The issue won’t be CAGW, or the economy, or the debt. It will be the fear by independents of the GOP need to control women’s bodies….. that small govt, real science, is only important when it is the other guy’s (gun control NOT abortion) agenda.
The important thing, friends: science, science, science. THAT is why you are here. *Science* is important and, if it becomes important for women to become mere ovens, it is *also* important to stop the killing at the SPCA. Kill to eat. No more. ….Lady in Red
Lady,
As I stated above “This is an inappropriate venue for abortion discussions other than to acknowledge that, regardless of how a child was/is conceived, the child is the blameless innocent.”
Loss of bladder function, hyperbole, and vitriol have no impact on that simple fact. Let’s agree to disagree and turn this discussion back to the science of hurricane forecasting, shall we?
We now return this thread to it’s regularly schedule analysis of hurricane Isaac tracking…
MtK
It’s track is moving away from Tampa. God loves the GOP