When a hurricane approaches, there is storm surge that piles up water, but when it is out at sea, especially in shallow waters, the vacuum effect of the low pressure of the storm can suck water away from the shores. Offshore winds also play a big role. Such is the case here. This photo, taken by Dana Young and posted on Twitter, shows the effect.
She writes:
Hours before Irma hits, the water is literally being sucked out of Tampa Bay. I took this photo at the end of my street. This was at Albany and Bayshore 15 min ago.
Others are observing the same thing:
Check out this video of #TampaBay! #HurricaneIrma winds pushing the water out. When they shift it'll surge back in! pic.twitter.com/axfpyCwTeM
— Justin Michaels (@JMichaelsNews) September 10, 2017
The same thing happened in the Bahamas when #Irma approached there:
https://twitter.com/aHEM_again/status/906738627421528064
The danger here is that once winds reverse and the eye gets closer, the water comes rushing back as dangerous storm surge.
See this graph of Sea Level from Naples:
How could a low pressure do anything but raise water? An east wind however would have no problem blowing water away from the west coast of Florida, and that is obviously what has happened. –AGF
AGF , you may recall a couple of years back I suggested that long term lunar tides could shift significant amounts of water ( and hence heat energy ) in and out of the tropics. You were initially sceptical but then used a simple ocean model to check the idea and agreed it was possible.
Earlier this year also I showed that there was a similar 9y lunar component in SST and ACE. https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/on-the-relationship-of-ace-and-sst/
I would like some info on how to go about calculating the volume of water involved. Could you drop me a msg on my about page please?
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/about/
OK.
Irma will remain as low in the southeastern US. Jose has a course to the west.
Large temperature difference between Florida and Georgia.
http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/CurrentTemps/tlh.jpg
I remember going to see Prof Julius Sumner Miller when I was young, and the one key takeaway I recall from the night is that there is no such thing in physics as “suction”. There are just pressure differentials with matter from a point of high pressure providing a “pushing” force towards a point of relatively lower pressure.
He demonstrated it by placing the inlet of a vacuum cleaner between two suspended spheres and we observed the two spheres being pushed together by air on the outer surfaces. I have adopted JSM’s pedantry on the topic.
Wouldn’t this further remover more heat from the ocean?