Hurricane Background Stuff
Jeff Masters, the hurricane blogger for the Weather Underground, wants people to remember that the April forecasts from Colorado have shown no skill in predicting Atlantic hurricane activity. Their June forecasts are quite good, so stand by for the June numbers.
The first name up will be Andrea, and as the practice is to reuse names every six years, I could get hit by another Erin, as happened in 1995. I don’t have to worry about another Opal, because the bad storms have their names retired from the lists.
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I figure that it’s probably a good idea to retire those names (though I’m still no fan of the boy names for hurricanes, it just seems weird), after all, who would want to be reminded of Katrina every six years, or Camille or Betsy? We’ve got enough to live with because of those bitches, as it is.
I’m sure not a fan of Georges, Ivan or Dennis. It makes the record keeping a lot easier than adding Roman numerals or years to the names.
Another thing people need to remember is that the range of likely locations hurricanes can hit has expanded considerably. I expected (and still expect) damage to my apartment in Houston, but I never would have predicted damage to my former property in Livingston, which is almost 100 miles north on US 59 from here, well inland. It’s not something Livingston residents ever thought of… but you can bet they think of it now.
Opal was weird in that respect – in many ways the damage was worse in inland Alabama, than along the coast. It zipped across the coast and then slowed down and turned. It wiped out pecan orchards 50 miles north of me, but only took out one large tree in my Mother’s yard.
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Well, if it weren’t for offshore drilling, the ruination of depositing topsoil in delta regions along the Mississippi (too many diversions & levee clusterfucks), and the horrendous erosion of the wetlands (gee, THANKS for that extra shipping channel that nobody ever fucking USES!!!), then the storms would stay where they belong, down in the wetlands, swamps, and deltas, rather than gathering power from the dying wetlands (too much saltwater and too little land/sediment) and hungrily crawling inland.
We have only our dumbass bureaucrat, pork-addicted politicians, the USACE, and ExxonMobil to thank for it.
That MRGO took out a major floodwall by funneling the surge against it. If the storm had made a direct hit on NOLA, or gone to the West, it is quite possible that there wouldn’t have been the major loss of floodwalls that took place. As it was the east winds ahead of landfall backed water up the MRGO, and then the north winds brought the lake into play.
The barrier island south of me with its condos is a wind and water break that reduces the damage where I live. The wetlands would do the same thing for NOLA.