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Hurricane Irene - b**ch thread


Baroclinic Zone

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Saw them and agree...huge surge....inland, I think most folks were expecting much, much more damage.

Well, there are 12000 homes without power in Fairfield thats roughly 40k people, the tree damage up near Greenfield Hill and other areas up north are prolific.

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what a dud imby

the surprise feb '10 wind storm doubled it up for wind

have seen more rain fall plenty of times and it's just not exciting

truth be told I'm happier tracking wind storms that hit someone else anyway

I've seen (hiding in my shower) 100+ sustained and it's alot more of a nightmare than a dream in my book

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what a dud imby

the surprise feb '10 wind storm doubled it up for wind

have seen more rain fall plenty of times and it's just not exciting

truth be told I'm happier tracking wind storms that hit someone else anyway

I've seen (hiding in my shower) 100+ sustained and it's alot more of a nightmare than a dream in my book

Ha same here. I just went around MHT and I didn't see even a small tree down. I wanted this to track to our east the entire time, cause I KNEW the good part about the storm would be the heavy rainfall. It sucks because we got screwed on SVR threats all year too, and now this to top everything off. Welp. I have a fantasy draft tonight at 7, time to fire up the excel sheet and do some research

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This is worse than Bob and Gloria. The reports coming in from CT/MA/RI are awful.

Disagree re Bob. Bob had a huge effect in the Cape, no to mention something Ike 14 inches of rain at PWM. Everyone I know including me lost power with Bob. Much less effect further west but for the most populace areas, it had a higher impact.

Remember the Cape foliage being stripped with a second sping blooming in Sept only to be crimped by winter?

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I'm on the fence with this guys. I admit to being just as much drawn whether emotionally or intellectually - probably some combination of both - to the ferocity of the the bigger events in nature. However, as I have grown older, I seek some medium where I can enjoy that exploration, without consequence of loss.

The short answer, you can't - you can't really disconnect those two. It sort of relegates us to hypocrisy of sort; because when the patterns grow devoid of reasons to be excitable either emotionally or intellectually, it can be just as intense for doldrums as the angst for losing one's property, otherwise. Certainly over putting loved ones in harms way.

I was sitting her this morning worried about my garden of all things. Rain...2 inches a moment, and worried about over watering. Wow. Then there was this thud on the side of my house; I went out in the pouring rain and wind, and watched for a few moments to no avail. Go back inside, "THUD". The trees have been whipping around in less frequency now for the past few hours, and I've deemed it safe to turn the television back on - before it is clicking off and on with those infernal micro-outages. I figured it would be better to just turn it off. The PC never blinked despite the fan moaning down and up with the flickering of the lights - distant jet engines going over head. Built in BUS must be protecting that. All seems all quiet now, but the power still flickers a little. I imagine somewhere out there along the lines there is a branch resting on a taut line waiting for the go ahead to ruin the rest of my night.

It occurred to me over the course of all that just how awful the whole experience would have taken on for me if the PC turned off, and fan went quite, and the air was rendered to dark. Many have at least that much fate for this... I started imagining different scenarios, like the brook that runs under the road 100 meters from my house swelling 12' feet and creeping up the road in some once in a 200 year horror. Or the trees across the street snapping in half and sailing in a 75mph wind gust to smash into my house.

The drama of this storm was heavily reduced for me when this shortly left PR and failed to intensify amid unmitigated positive factors. I called my Met buddy and bitched to him for 20 minutes, and he agreed. We also lamented that J.Q. Public may be thinking, "Okay, that was a hurricane". Eh.... that's kind of setting up civility to not take the next 1938 to the necessary heart. So the dram was a bit lost to me earlier on in this, and all I was left with was fearing those physical descriptions above; makes me reflect on whether it is all worth it. A weaker system dropping a tree through my roof would not have been worth it, at all!

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Disagree re Bob. Bob had a huge effect in the Cape, no to mention something Ike 14 inches of rain at PWM. Everyone I know including me lost power with Bob. Much less effect further west but for the most populace areas, it had a higher impact.

Remember the Cape foliage being stripped with a second sping blooming in Sept only to be crimped by winter?

http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=aly&gage=bntv1&view=1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1%22

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I'm on the fence with this guys. I admit to being just as much drawn whether emotionally or intellectually - probably some combination of both - to the ferocity of the the bigger events in nature. However, as I have grown older, I seek some medium where I can enjoy that exploration, without consequence of loss.

The short answer, you can't - you can't really disconnect those two. It sort of relegates us to hypocrisy of sort; because when the patterns grow devoid of reasons to be excitable either emotionally or intellectually, it can be just as intense for doldrums as the angst for losing one's property, otherwise. Certainly over putting loved ones in harms way.

I was sitting her this morning worried about my garden of all things. Rain...2 inches a moment, and worried about over watering. Wow. Then there was this thud on the side of my house; I went out in the pouring rain and wind, and watched for a few moments to no avail. Go back inside, "THUD". The trees have been whipping around in less frequency now for the past few hours, and I've deemed it safe to turn the television back on - before it is clicking off and on with those infernal micro-outages. I figured it would be better to just turn it off. The PC never blinked despite the fan moaning down and up with the flickering of the lights - distant jet engines going over head. Built in BUS must be protecting that. All seems all quiet now, but the power still flickers a little. I imagine somewhere out there along the lines there is a branch resting on a taut line waiting for the go ahead to ruin the rest of my night.

It occurred to me over the course of all that just how awful the whole experience would have taken on for me if the PC turned off, and fan went quite, and the air was rendered to dark. Many have at least that much fate for this... I started imagining different scenarios, like the brook that runs under the road 100 meters from my house swelling 12' feet and creeping up the road in some once in a 200 year horror. Or the trees across the street snapping in half and sailing in a 75mph wind gust to smash into my house.

The drama of this storm was heavily reduced for me when this shortly left PR and failed to intensify amid unmitigated positive factors. I called my Met buddy and bitched to him for 20 minutes, and he agreed. We also lamented that J.Q. Public may be thinking, "Okay, that was a hurricane". Eh.... that's kind of setting up civility to not take the next 1938 to the necessary heart. So the dram was a bit lost to me earlier on in this, and all I was left with was fearing those physical descriptions above; makes me reflect on whether it is all worth it. A weaker system dropping a tree through my roof would not have been worth it, at all!

What an awesome synopsis! Well said........

Especially this statement....

We also lamented that J.Q. Public may be thinking, "Okay, that was a hurricane". Eh.... that's kind of setting up civility to not take the next 1938 to the necessary heart.

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Well, there are 12000 homes without power in Fairfield thats roughly 40k people, the tree damage up near Greenfield Hill and other areas up north are prolific.

I'm up north and there's not much damage at al, power's on and it's businesss as usual....l--drove around a bit this eve and North Benson road was bad, but that was about it....(outside the beach areas) didnt hit Greenfield Hill....

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Take a look at the pics in the damage thread Brian, down here at the beach it was a little different story.......................some serious damage

Funny you mention that. I went for a stroll on Compo bech in Floydd 1999 and There was at least 35mph winds sustained with gusts to 50. Got back to my house two miles inland and there was 10mph winds. It appears that happened again. Also saw thisreport by a property owner saying the water came up higher than Dec 1992.

http://westport.patch.com/articles/irenes-destruction-westporters-enjoy-an-afternoon-outside-after-storm#photo-7538682

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I'm up north and there's not much damage at al, power's on and it's businesss as usual....l--drove around a bit this eve and North Benson road was bad, but that was about it....(outside the beach areas) didnt hit Greenfield Hill....

I have no idea what in the heck you saw, but easton, weston, wilton, monroe and the rest of the state has catastrophic tree damage? The town had 40,000 people without power and the first selectman said the tree damage is extensive in the northern part of Fairfield, I will def take some pics tomorrow driving around for work.

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I'm on the fence with this guys. I admit to being just as much drawn whether emotionally or intellectually - probably some combination of both - to the ferocity of the the bigger events in nature. However, as I have grown older, I seek some medium where I can enjoy that exploration, without consequence of loss.

The short answer, you can't - you can't really disconnect those two. It sort of relegates us to hypocrisy of sort; because when the patterns grow devoid of reasons to be excitable either emotionally or intellectually, it can be just as intense for doldrums as the angst for losing one's property, otherwise. Certainly over putting loved ones in harms way.

I was sitting her this morning worried about my garden of all things. Rain...2 inches a moment, and worried about over watering. Wow. Then there was this thud on the side of my house; I went out in the pouring rain and wind, and watched for a few moments to no avail. Go back inside, "THUD". The trees have been whipping around in less frequency now for the past few hours, and I've deemed it safe to turn the television back on - before it is clicking off and on with those infernal micro-outages. I figured it would be better to just turn it off. The PC never blinked despite the fan moaning down and up with the flickering of the lights - distant jet engines going over head. Built in BUS must be protecting that. All seems all quiet now, but the power still flickers a little. I imagine somewhere out there along the lines there is a branch resting on a taut line waiting for the go ahead to ruin the rest of my night.

It occurred to me over the course of all that just how awful the whole experience would have taken on for me if the PC turned off, and fan went quite, and the air was rendered to dark. Many have at least that much fate for this... I started imagining different scenarios, like the brook that runs under the road 100 meters from my house swelling 12' feet and creeping up the road in some once in a 200 year horror. Or the trees across the street snapping in half and sailing in a 75mph wind gust to smash into my house.

The drama of this storm was heavily reduced for me when this shortly left PR and failed to intensify amid unmitigated positive factors. I called my Met buddy and bitched to him for 20 minutes, and he agreed. We also lamented that J.Q. Public may be thinking, "Okay, that was a hurricane". Eh.... that's kind of setting up civility to not take the next 1938 to the necessary heart. So the dram was a bit lost to me earlier on in this, and all I was left with was fearing those physical descriptions above; makes me reflect on whether it is all worth it. A weaker system dropping a tree through my roof would not have been worth it, at all!

For me it was the third strike in a year of dissapointment. I struck out on boxing day, the 6/1 severe outbreak, and now Irene. All of those are probably once in a decade event and I missed out on all of them by what 50-100 miles?

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What an awesome synopsis! Well said........

Especially this statement....

We also lamented that J.Q. Public may be thinking, "Okay, that was a hurricane". Eh.... that's kind of setting up civility to not take the next 1938 to the necessary heart.

Wasn't posting because I was on the water/bays most of the night helping friends.

Here's what I can tell you. If "this" half assed tropical storm, and that's all it was for the last day or more I don't care what anyone says or what some guy in a plane measured....if it pushed water like this tonight....I hope to heck people take the next real cane seriously.

Rte 6a by the Agawam river, Little Harbor in Wareham, Barlows Landing in Bourne...many of these places were 1, maybe 2 feet from disaster tonight. Rte 6a would have been gone at the Agawam crossing with another foot or water. This half cooked wind storm wasn't far from doing a ton of water damage and I shudder to think that Tip is 100% right, most people around here even those without power are saying WTF is that major storm everyone was talking about.

I'm impressed by the massive geographic area of damage. Scared to think people won't listen and I still think NHC needs to go back to downgrading when it's obvious 99% of the people aren't going to experience the winds forecast. take a look at the advisories for sustained winds and then look at all the ship reports, buoy reports and land reports and try to match them up. Been going on since Katrina.

Hope all our americanwx friends are safe, be thankful this was nowhere near as bad as it could be, it's already bad enough.

If the NHC had downgraded instead of being mocked by the British and everyone else for the wimpy hurricane, people may instead be thinking "holy shi* that tropical storm did a lot of damage we better make sure we are prepared for the next big one"

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Wasn't posting because I was on the water/bays most of the night helping friends.

Here's what I can tell you. If "this" half assed tropical storm, and that's all it was for the last day or more I don't care what anyone says or what some guy in a plane measured....if it pushed water like this tonight....I hope to heck people take the next real cane seriously.

Rte 6a by the Agawam river, Little Harbor in Wareham, Barlows Landing in Bourne...many of these places were 1, maybe 2 feet from disaster tonight. Rte 6a would have been gone at the Agawam crossing with another foot or water. This half cooked wind storm wasn't far from doing a ton of water damage and I shudder to think that Tip is 100% right, most people around here even those without power are saying WTF is that major storm everyone was talking about.

I'm impressed by the massive geographic area of damage. Scared to think people won't listen and I still think NHC needs to go back to downgrading when it's obvious 99% of the people aren't going to experience the winds forecast. take a look at the advisories for sustained winds and then look at all the ship reports, buoy reports and land reports and try to match them up. Been going on since Katrina.

Hope all our americanwx friends are safe, be thankful this was nowhere near as bad as it could be, it's already bad enough.

If the NHC had downgraded instead of being mocked by the British and everyone else for the wimpy hurricane, people may instead be thinking "holy shi* that tropical storm did a lot of damage we better make sure we are prepared for the next big one"

Bob was way worse, yet Bob also made landfall at a low tide and only one tide as it was moving too quickly. Imagine Bob hitting at the tides and timing we had with Irene. Serious devastation. Sure the inland areas west of TAN and PVD had worse conditions for a much longer period of time in Irene, but not even close to the same league in SE MA/Cape. This was more directed at your previous post.

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Wasn't posting because I was on the water/bays most of the night helping friends.

Here's what I can tell you. If "this" half assed tropical storm, and that's all it was for the last day or more I don't care what anyone says or what some guy in a plane measured....if it pushed water like this tonight....I hope to heck people take the next real cane seriously.

Rte 6a by the Agawam river, Little Harbor in Wareham, Barlows Landing in Bourne...many of these places were 1, maybe 2 feet from disaster tonight. Rte 6a would have been gone at the Agawam crossing with another foot or water. This half cooked wind storm wasn't far from doing a ton of water damage and I shudder to think that Tip is 100% right, most people around here even those without power are saying WTF is that major storm everyone was talking about.

I'm impressed by the massive geographic area of damage. Scared to think people won't listen and I still think NHC needs to go back to downgrading when it's obvious 99% of the people aren't going to experience the winds forecast. take a look at the advisories for sustained winds and then look at all the ship reports, buoy reports and land reports and try to match them up. Been going on since Katrina.

Hope all our americanwx friends are safe, be thankful this was nowhere near as bad as it could be, it's already bad enough.

If the NHC had downgraded instead of being mocked by the British and everyone else for the wimpy hurricane, people may instead be thinking "holy shi* that tropical storm did a lot of damage we better make sure we are prepared for the next big one"

Inland winds are always a side story, and I mentioned this before, but who really cares if inland people prepare? The loss of life and limb won't change significantly based on whether people inland like me have extra batteries. There's not much they can do, evacuation is not a good option, preparation involves stockpiling a bit of food and water and getting to an interior room during damaging winds.

It's always about the flooding of low lying areas, that's how people die, that's who needs to prepare.

It seems like during every threat there evacuations ordered in the appropriate lowlands. It's people's own problem IMO if they ignore the evidence and engage in risky behavior of building in a flood zone and then riding out the storm instead of following evacuation orders. We may consider that a poor choice, but who is the government, media, or forum weenie to make choices for people?

The scenario that would be most tragic would be loss of life without warning. I think the NHC and others do everything in their power to avoid that.

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Bob/Birving agree on all points. My only fear is this post Katrina lack of downgrading storms has to end. People have no idea the heckstorm they are in for when the next 1938 comes around. This was childsplay aside of the major rain flooding and it's plenty bad.

Don't know a single person that lost power that has it yet.

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Bob/Birving agree on all points. My only fear is this post Katrina lack of downgrading storms has to end. People have no idea the heckstorm they are in for when the next 1938 comes around. This was childsplay aside of the major rain flooding and it's plenty bad.

Don't know a single person that lost power that has it yet.

Did Irene happen to exceed standard surge for TS and or Cat 1 in a significant # of locations?

I think it's less about the category that's assigned and more about the SS scale being a poor primary measurement.

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Did Irene happen to exceed standard surge for TS and or Cat 1 in a significant # of locations?I think it's less about the category that's assigned and more about the SS scale being a poor primary measurement.
just imo there are a number of factors and most of them (duration tides/lunar cycle/ large fetch.windfield) made what is normally a lesser storm a pretty big deal.
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Did Irene happen to exceed standard surge for TS and or Cat 1 in a significant # of locations?

I think it's less about the category that's assigned and more about the SS scale being a poor primary measurement.

It barely delivered TS winds once it got out of the mid-atlantic where it barely managed to produce hurricane force winds. Ground truth/buoy truth shows wind wise it was a weak Cat 1 and then a moderate tropical storm up here fading quickly.

It did a lot of damage, but NHC needs to decide what their aim is because instead of people thinking "what a brutal TS" they're being mocked in every paper over the wimpy "hurricane"...truth of the matter is it did a lot of damage and should be a dire warning of what could happen.

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It barely delivered TS winds once it got out of the mid-atlantic where it barely managed to produce hurricane force winds. Ground truth/buoy truth shows wind wise it was a weak Cat 1 and then a moderate tropical storm up here fading quickly.

It did a lot of damage, but NHC needs to decide what their aim is because instead of people thinking "what a brutal TS" they're being mocked in every paper over the wimpy "hurricane"...truth of the matter is it did a lot of damage and should be a dire warning of what could happen.

Had no one evacuated for a "wimpy TS" there would have been more loss of life along the coast and the NHC would have been slandered and ridiculed for downplaying. I can't agree with your stance here. This was a TS with a hurricane force (albeit weak) surge, tide, wave action.

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It barely delivered TS winds once it got out of the mid-atlantic where it barely managed to produce hurricane force winds. Ground truth/buoy truth shows wind wise it was a weak Cat 1 and then a moderate tropical storm up here fading quickly.

It did a lot of damage, but NHC needs to decide what their aim is because instead of people thinking "what a brutal TS" they're being mocked in every paper over the wimpy "hurricane"...truth of the matter is it did a lot of damage and should be a dire warning of what could happen.

A car was floating down the river in VT. It was a major storm.

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Had no one evacuated for a "wimpy TS" there would have been more loss of life along the coast and the NHC would have been slandered and ridiculed for downplaying. I can't agree with your stance here. This was a TS with a hurricane force (albeit weak) surge, tide, wave action.

Of course. But that isn't the point. I think on this thread or on the main one I posted the article from the CWG that listed the study that shows people will react differently the next time because of the perceptions of this storm. The difference between this being a surprisingly impressive tropical storm, and the major hurricane many were expecting ...yes it is their fault for not staying up to date but as many writers have mentioned part of that is the media coverage.

A car was floating down the river in VT. It was a major storm.

They got a ton of rain which was always expected regardless of wind speed. The track forecasts were outstanding.

--

It was nowhere near Bob on the Cape. An article in today's Cape Cod Times sums it up best. A check of all harbormasters on the Cape revealed 100 boats broke loose across all the harbors and inlets during this storm. In Bob 200 broke loose in Cotuit Harbor alone.

Personally what this storm showed me being down at the Agawam River and Little Harbor at high tide Sunday night - is that when the big one comes we are going to see Andrew'esque damage, Katrina like flooding in Wareham, Onset, Bourne and a lot of the Cape, south coastal MA and RI. People aren't just going to want to leave the coast, they'll want to leave the Cape entirely when the 100+ cane does come like 38.

It was a tropical storm when it hit us. We did not get our first landfalling hurricane in xx years. When we do and providing it isn't a hurricane with 50 knot winds...I shudder to think how bad the damage is going to be. It's pretty clear to me all the new developments since Gloria/Bob, all the tree stands partially removed to put up those homes but left with tall weaker middle stand trees exposed, all the properties on the water and the proliferation of boats....it's going to be devastating.

I just hope people don't use this storm as a guide and think "I survived a strong Cat 1" in 2011.....

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