After battling the “dry” tropical air along its route from Haiti, Cuba, Florida, to Louisiana, Isaac has finally become a hurricane with the required 64+ knots 1-minute sustained near-surface winds. Numerical models finally expressed some certainty on a Louisiana coastal landfall, but diverged significantly on intensity. There is also some question about the ability of Isaac to penetrate far inland away from the frictionally convergent swamps. A major flood event is underway.
Click image to animate it over several hoursThis tracking map is in high definition (updates every 3-4 hours, click to enlarge)
Now WeatherBell’s track map via Ryan Maue: (click to enlarge)
NHC:
Track map in HiDef – click to enlarge:
More…plus signup for free hurricane bulletins.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/tropical-cyclone/
Dang, has it developed an eye just off the coast? I’ve been looking for a stable eye in this storm, and until the latest (12:00 AM EST) Altlantic Satellite Loop it’s been missing. I don’t think I’ve seen one develop so close to landfall.
Ok, I’ve been watching hurricanes make landfall since 1971. One thing that never occurred to me, is now a burning question to those amateur and professional meteorologists on this blog” Why is it that weather systems in the Northern Hemisphere primarily move from North West to South East, yet hurricanes primarily move South East to North West?
It seems contrary to prevailing patterns. Is it a result of being close to the tropical convergence zones, and their energy continues to propel them in a North Easterly direction even after they leave those zones?
J Solters says:
August 28, 2012 at 8:37 pm
There really aren’t many stations out in the marsh. There are some buoys and oil & gas platforms in the gulf though.
Anyway, I checked and some storms have looped to the left before. This one is moving slow and will be very difficult for anyone to predict what will happen overnight and tomorrow. It could surprise us. The official track hasn’t changed much though.
Ron Dean says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Ok, I’ve been watching hurricanes make landfall since 1971. One thing that never occurred to me, is now a burning question to those amateur and professional meteorologists on this blog” Why is it that weather systems in the Northern Hemisphere primarily move from North West to South East, yet hurricanes primarily move South East to North West?
Closer to the equator the prevailing winds are east to west (the Trade Winds). In mid-latitudes the prevailing winds are west to east. Hurricanes are just blown by the prevailing winds.
george e smith says:
August 28, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Also, Christchurch Cathedral, will not be rebuilt. That sort of structure was never intended to experience earthquakes; so now they will have to come up with a suitable replacement structure, that IS quake savvy. Some times you just have to let go.
=====================
Precisely George. I (still) live up on Cashmere Hill. The jolts were pretty severe there.
Watching the radar loop, I find it interesting that the system is moving westward right now (7:30Z) along the coastline. I’ll find it even more amusing if it doesn’t make the Northward turn and just drifts along the coast and just soaks the coastline. Of couse that’ll mean that when it eventually does make that turn it’ll give a good wetdown to more drought striken areas.
Slightly off topic, but I think this needs to be said:
I don’t think it demonstrates a full awareness of how our nation is built and functions to suggest bailing out (pun) on New Orleans. You’ll have to check the facts, but something like 30% of our imports and exports pass through that port. If the city was wiped out, we’d have to build a new one.
An attribute of some environmentalists is that they despair very quickly, when faced with a problem. They give other environmentalists a bad name.
Various tribes of Native Americans, generally called “Mound Builders,” built impressive raised hills on the flood plains of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and all they had for “Earth Moving Equipment” was baskets. (No wheels; No horses; No oxen.)
Both Boston and S.F. are large ports built on fill. Old maps show a lot more water around the downtown areas.
New Orleans does have big problems, but they are not “their” problem. They are “our” problem. United We Stand.
One slightly disgusting problem, in the past, is that when we sent money south to address the problem the local administrators spent far too much building offices rather than levees, and too much on secretaries and not bigger pumps. (joke)
However that is a problem that can be dealt with in a pragmatic manner, as can the engineering and environmental problems. Even if parts or all of the city were abandoned, and a “Newer Orleans” was built, it should be done by cool heads, and should benefit all America.
The business of wailing and despairing and abandoning all hope is a sign of immaturity.
Cable feeds of New Orleans local TV reporting winds around the area. Highest at the airport with 48mph sustained and 58 mph gusts. National Weather service shows the same. A “second landfall” reported at 3:10 am central time. Looking at other NWS logs showing highest winds around Thibodaux and Houma, LA with sustained winds in the 45 to 48mph range and gusts to low 60s. Nowhere near hurricane speeds. Gulfport NWS now showing 33mph with gusts to 55.
NWS advisories refer to Isaac as “tropical storm” and not hurricane. Cable news outlet reporters seem unable to form simple English sentences and keep refering to “Hurricane Isaac”
Jim Cantore of Weather Channel sounds like to only reliable source of info.
From what I see on the TV feeds, the amount of wind is nowhere near 60 mph sustained.
george e smith says:
August 28, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Also, Christchurch Cathedral, will not be rebuilt. That sort of structure was never intended to experience earthquakes; so now they will have to come up with a suitable replacement structure, that IS quake savvy. Some times you just have to let go.
The great cathedrals were always meant to be places of sanctuary and where people can congregate and discuss. It would be fitting if the new structure offered the prospect of safe bedspace to future earthquake refugees and a place of safety in which public meetings can be held.
Ron Dean, I think this may help you understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds
Ron Dean says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Ron, you need to start with a spinning globe and the “Coriolis Effect.” Here is a start:
http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/coriolis.htm
As for the directions, consider the hands of a clock – call one a pointer. The tip of the pointer when near Noon seems to be going from left to right or from west to east. At 6 P.M. that same pointer seems to be going from right to left or east to west.
Same pointer – same movement. Hurricanes do this. Those that come to the US East or Gulf coast mostly start off the coast of Africa at 500 miles (plus or minus) north of the Equator – called Easterly Waves – non-rotating. When conditions are just so, they may for a storm that begins to have a circular form – rotation.
Air moving in the Northern Hemisphere around a low pressure (air going up) system has the tendency to move clockwise while being pulled inward toward the rising air column. The two forces combine to show an inward swirl (counter-clockwise in the NH) for the system because the rising air forms clouds that are visual. Meanwhile the entire system, having begun as and east-moving storm, will turn to the NW, then N, and then to the NE. As it moves north, it will enter the zonal flow of the “Westerlies”, move over land and/or cool water, and its source of energy will be removed and it will slowly cease to exist. It will have carried large amounts of water and energy from low latitudes to higher latitudes.
If you have a glass clock it is easy to visualize that the same pointer seen from the back side will move from right to left (near Noon) while going the other way when looked at from the front. This same things happens when moving from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere with respect to air currents. The spin of “Lows” or Cyclones will rotate in the opposite direction from your standard USA view of things.
The above link has related articles linked to at the end.
“BW” has shown some surface windspeed measurements now that Isaac is over land. None are at hurricane force sustained windspeed. Let’s keep looking for windspeeds exceeding 73 mph, not gusts. NHC appears wrong again. This looks like a tropical storm; damage/floods can occur, but not hurricane force winds. If NHC wants to artificially pump up the category, that’s OK as long as it tells the public why it feels necessary to do so. Don’t hide the facts. The general public will protect themselves given the best facts available. The is no need to adopt a “protect them from themselves” syndrome. They can handle the truth.
@Larry Cullen Butler – Linking to ENENews.com should get your IP banned from WUWT. That site is pure fear/hate mongering. The site appears to be dedicated to trying to resurrecting the fraudulent claims and professional lies of that snake oil salesman Arnie Gunderson.
“””””…..James Allison says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:55 pm
george e smith says:
August 28, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Also, Christchurch Cathedral, will not be rebuilt. That sort of structure was never intended to experience earthquakes; so now they will have to come up with a suitable replacement structure, that IS quake savvy. Some times you just have to let go.
=====================
Precisely George. I (still) live up on Cashmere Hill. The jolts were pretty severe there……”””””
James, I saw the Cathedral, Christmas / New Year 2006/7 with my family, on my first and so far only trip to the South Island, and immediately got a sense of why it was a special landmark; on a par with the famous view of Mt Cook through the restaurant window at the Hermitage. But reality sets in, when you find out it really is earthquake country. Friends who retired to CC from the SF Bay area (she’s KiwiAmerican) live in the urbs, and weren’t in town those days.
But you lose some and you win some. The recent revelation that The Pink Terraces, were not blown up in 1886, but still exist buried under Lake Rotomahana, is amazing news. Can’t be dug up; but apparently remote sensing imagery, will be able to construct virtual tours of the buried terraces ; That I have to see. The loss of the White Terraces, which WERE blown to smitherens, still shocks me, even though I never saw either of them ( missed it by ; That much ! )
Caleb says:
> August 29, 2012 at 1:32 am
> You’ll have to check the facts, but something like 30%
> of our imports and exports pass through that port. If
> the city was wiped out, we’d have to build a new one.
[…deletia…]
> Even if parts or all of the city were abandoned, and
> a “Newer Orleans” was built, it should be done by cool
> heads, and should benefit all America.
Morgan City might be a more feasible location.
> Both Boston and S.F. are large ports built on fill. Old
> maps show a lot more water around the downtown areas.
Neither Boston nor S.F. have to deal with…
* portions of the city subsiding by as much as a foot per year
* portions of the city sliding 1 or 2 feet horizontally per year. Ask any engineer how they’re going to build levees that don’t break up under that type of stress.
* the Mississippi is trying migrate west from its current delta towards Morgan City.
> An attribute of some environmentalists is that they despair
> very quickly, when faced with a problem. They give other
> environmentalists a bad name.
[…deletia…]
> The business of wailing and despairing and abandoning all
> hope is a sign of immaturity.
Actually, it’s the immature environmentalists (e.g. AGW types) who advocate throwing trillions of dollars at natural problems because they think mankind fully controls nature. A more mature approach is to cut your losses, relocate all New Orleanians, and give them a new home elsewhere, and move on.
To summarize from http://pesn.com/2005/09/23/9600175_Rebuild_Energy_Systems_Not_NewOrleans/
Hurricanes are ***THE LEAST*** of New Orleans’ problems…
> The river is moving away from the city. The city is
> sinking because of its weight, because no upbuilding
> by new muck for many decades, because of being cut
> off from the fresh water, because it is sliding off a cliff
> (the Continental Shelf), and because the Oil and Gas
> Industry is extracting oil out from under it.
The port is not a federal port, it is a local and at best state run port. Any costs to rebuild should come from the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. Personally I believe the port should be privatized and the cost of operation and rebuilding coming from the company that would operate it and it’s customers. The “port” has nothing to do with the “city”. Rebuilding one is not an argument to rebuild another and neither should include federal tax money.
With regard to all the comments about “not rebuilding New Orleans”….
The old part of New Orleans (where the French Quarter and the port lie) is near the Mississippi River, where the natural sediment deposits hundreds of years ago created a “natural levee”. The natural levee is above sea level and did not flood for Katrina.
The Katrina flooding occurred in areas which are away from the river, not on the natural levee, in a basin between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain. This area was once basically a swamp which developed into residential areas thanks to low interest loans, and driven by the need for labor in New Orleans.
New Orleans is a strategic port, a historic city, and talk of abandoning it is coming from ignorance IMHO. The more affluent folks who work in New Orleans have moved to the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain and they commute into the city. The folks in the lower 9th ward are mostly laborers, and they always tend to suffer simply because of their precarious economic situation. It’s just a fact of nature.
“Morgan City might be a more feasible location.”
Morgan City is a much more precarious location.
I know it’s magical thinking, but I can’t help thinking this cyclone was engineered to destroy N.O.
It had to weave a route thru the gulf, impact on the anniversary, and then stall, dumping non-stop water on the interior basin, whilst battering down older sections of the barriers. If that doesn’t meet the definition of “targeted”… GK
“””””….._Jim says:
August 28, 2012 at 6:36 pm
george e smith says August 28, 2012 at 5:01 pm
…
_Jim you completely missed my point;………………..
You are setting up a scenario I am unlikely in my lifetime to experience; when I travel, I have a compact circular slide rule buried in my briefcase. As ubiquitous as the web is anymore I don’t find the need to carry a copy of the ITT Reference Data for Engineers anymore either.
Upon further reflection, given your scenario, I can see where knowledge of basic Trig functions might come in handy, but I don’t see that knowing the conversion from Knots to km/hr would have much benefit ……”””””
Well _Jim, I went to school in a strange era, where they had this quaint idea, that EVERY PERSON should actually learn something, or how to do something; if only because it might come in handy for making a living someday.
I too have a circular slide rule, and also both a five, and ten inch K&E regular engineering slide rules. I seldom use them. I can still do +, -, *, /, sqrt, cbrt, all on paper, I can find the roots of any second order polynomial; even derive Cardan’s solution for the roots of any cubic equation, as well as do the trigonometric substitution solution for when Cardan’s doesn’t yield numerical answers. Don’t need any of that, since I am always working on one of my three computers, and have the M$ on screen calculator. Don’t even have to uncase either of my very powerful HP Scientific calculators; but they are always within arm’s reach. M$ Excel is a totally brain dead piece of trash, but I often use it to calculate and graph all kinds of wild and woolly stuff.
But then I can do much of that in my head in total darkness, while trying to go to sleep. So can most of the folks I went to school with.
So today you have “focus groups” to gather and talk about problems, and reach a concensus on the likely answer to the question. So if you Giggle something and get an answer that “somebody else” came up with; why are you going to believe their answer, if you can’t sanity check it yourself ?
From the time I first entered “Primer 1” within weeks of my 5th birthday, till I finished my post graduate stint 20 years later, not once on any occasion, did I ever work, with any other student or pupil on any project or problem; they had a word for that ; “cheating” . The other students were also busy learning something themselves.
Today’s “students” work in groups, so one person does the work (and learns something) and the whole group gets the same grade (good for self esteem).
Unfortunately profit making enterprises, hire people who actually know something, or can do something. If they hire somebody else, they want him/er to do something else.
Only in the public sector do they tolerate three featherbedders holding slow/stop signs, while one person operates a jackhammer, or shovel to actually do road construction work; or have assistant undersecretaries, of this or that beaurocracy to make up regulations, so that the Government persons that the people actually elected to write the laws, no longer even have to read the laws they sign up for; and which they exempt themseves from compliance with.
That’s roughly why I think it is useful to be able to, on a one coconut palm / one shark island, determine roughly how many litres or cubic metres one barn-parsec is, even if you never need to know.
National Weather Service (NWS) web site show recorded wind speeds every few hours for the last 3 days. Based on the radar, the maximum winds were over and south of New Orleans. Here are the maximum sustained speeds for Isaac in miles per hour and time recorded
South Lafourche Airport, Galliano, LA
Wind speed sustained 58mph with gusts to 77 mph
Aug28 at 23:55
New Orleans Lakefront Airport
55/70
Aug29 05:53
Houma, LA
49/61
Aug29 at 02:55
New Orleans Naval Air Station
52/74
Aug29 at 03:55
URL showing these numbers
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KNEW.html
No address of the ‘radio’ thing huh? Telling on a level or two (e.g. no ‘practical’ knowledge or experience in applied physics/electronics as it applies to RF/EM energy …). That’s probably where we differ; I applied myself in THAT area.
.
“””””….._Jim says:
August 29, 2012 at 3:27 pm
george e smith says August 29, 2012 at 11:32 am
…
That’s roughly why I think it is useful to be able to, on a one coconut palm / one shark island, determine roughly how many litres or cubic metres one barn-parsec is, even if you never need to know.
No address of the ‘radio’ thing huh? Telling on a level or two (e.g. no ‘practical’ knowledge or experience in applied physics/electronics as it applies to RF/EM energy …). That’s probably where we differ; I applied myself in THAT area……”””””
Well you got me there _Jim; on the ‘radio’ thing that is, and the RF. I did build a radio once from parts (not a kit). Simple thing. (well I was ten at the time.) Used a 1D8GT Diode Triode Pentode valve. Pentode was the RF stage, and the diode was of course the detector, with the triode being the auidio output amplifier. Simple TRF job. Used a single AA cell for the filament, and and Eveready #467 67 1/2 Volt B battery. I didn’t build my first superheterodyne with an RF stage until I was 12. I tried the Synchrodyne thing which was all the rage at the time, but can’t say it was any better, and I couldn’t stand the out of synch whistle. But I do actual;ly have a BSc degree with five majors. Pure Mathematics, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Radio-Physics, and Mathematical Physics; did a minor in Chemistry. Nothing like a PhD though. As far as ‘practical’ knowledge or experience, since I left academia for industry, I only have 51 years as a working Physicist / Electronics Engineer / Optical designer. You might even be using a mouse with imaging and illumination optics that I designed; I know at least two billion of them have been sold worldwide, since we did the first ones; maybe three billion by now. I know many of my patents related to that have already expired.
I did solid state Analog CMOS circuit design before that , meaning designing down to the bare metal, and creating my own device structures from Silicon Foundry standard diffusion or implant profiles; and all the way up through the device design (analog and digital) to the circuit layout (on chip). Only contact with aircraft radio, would be my restricted radio operator’s permit I need for when I am piloting a private plane; never did the ‘ham’ thing.
But I’m no competition for those PhD Physicist types who do all those wonderful statistical regressions and straight line trend superflop computations to establish those robust projection type predictions that may be consistent with thermometer measured reality.
I guess I need to go back to school.