Posts from — September 2007

Unfortunately Felix had the time and warm water to spin back up after the eyewall replacement.

Position: 14.3 N/83.2 W. [7PM EDT]
Movement: West [270°] near 16 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 160 mph [Cat 5].
Gusts: 190mph
Minimum central pressure: 935 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 30 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

Came ashore near Punta Gorda, Nicaragua.

Two hurricanes and two Cat 5 storms, both hitting land as Cat 5s. The 2005 season had four Cat 5s, but this season joins 1960 & 1961 in second place with two.

Update from Dr. Jeff Masters:

A strengthening Hurricane Felix powered ashore as a Category 5 hurricane near the Nicaragua/Honduras border at 8am EDT this morning, bringing 160 mph winds and an 18-foot storm surge to this sparsely populated region. Felix weakened for a period yesterday as it became too tightly would to maintain its eyewall, but a new eyewall formed last night in time for Felix to regain Category 5 strength before landfall. This year marks the first time in recorded history that two Category 5 storms (Felix and Dean) have made landfall in the Atlantic basin in the same year. Since reliable record keeping began in 1944, there have been 27 Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic. Eight of these have occurred in the past five years.

A quick check showed that neither PBS or NPR thought it was worthwhile to mention Labor Day in their programming [outside of references in campaigning on labor day at parades in Iowa and New Hampshire], while the CBC had all kinds of features today.

I guess labor is just too controversial for the media.

Position: 14.4 N/81.1 W. [10PM CDT]
Movement: West [270°] near 19 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 135 mph [Cat 4].
Gusts: 160mph
Minimum central pressure: 951 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 30 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 145 miles East-Southest of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua/Honduras border.

Felix has just complete an eyewall replacement and the pressure is starting to drop again, which means it will get stronger as it heads in to land just to the south of the of the Nicaragua/Honduras border tomorrow morning. It has also slowed slightly giving it more time to strengthen.

CNet has a photo essay of rebuilding an Altair 8800. It was a mid-70s kit PC with an Intel 8080, and S-100 bus architecture. The machine pictured had 32KB of RAM, an 8-inch floppy, and used CP/M.

Enough to make the solder burns from the early years flare up.

So we had a minor deluge while I was outside filling cat dishes and I ducked into the carport to wait it out, as they usually don’t last more than 15 minutes. I looked up and saw a large spider in an amazing gold colored web. The spider turned out to be a Golden Silk Orbweaver [Nephila clavipes] and the female I saw was the color of old ivory with black fuzz around the joints of its legs. From the tip of a rear leg to the tip of a front leg was about 4 inches. Even in the rain the web was golden yellow against the white of the carport ceiling.

The male of the species, who I first thought was a juvenile, was a ways off and not nearly as interesting. They eat a lot of flying insects, which is fine by me.

Well, General Sir Mike Jackson thought Rummy’s ops plan was worthless, so now we hear from British Major General Timothy “Tim” Cross, the senior logistics officer for the British Army at the time of the invasion.

The Associated Press reports: Retired UK general criticizes U.S. Iraq policy

LONDON, England (AP) — A second retired British general slammed the United States over its Iraq policy, saying in a newspaper interview published Sunday that it had been “fatally flawed.”

Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in the postwar planning, said he had raised serious concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but said former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the warnings.

“Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process,” Cross said in the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

[Read more →]

Since it’s Labor Day we might as well get the reality for working people stated again, so CNN/Money magazine lays it out: GDP growth not reaching paychecks

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The economic expansion that began six years ago has failed to benefit most workers, according to a report from the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, released Monday.

Productivity growth, although slower of late, has been strong since 2000. After a sluggish start in the period, employment has picked up, although at a slower pace than in past recoveries. Yet, that growth hasn’t transferred to workers’ paychecks, particularly for workers at the lower and middle end of the pay scale, the report found.

After rising quickly in the second half of the 1990s, most workers real wages have been stagnant in the 2000s, especially since 2003.

[Read more →]

Position: 14.2 N/78.7 W. [1PM CDT]
Movement: West near 21 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 145 mph [Cat 4].
Gusts: 195mph
Minimum central pressure: 950 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 30 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 365 miles East of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua/Honduras border.

The pressure is rising and the winds are dropping. Without shear it is shaking itself into less organization, which may be related to the strengthening ridge to the North suppling steering and the higher forward speed. It is good news to those in its path. It looks set to hit the lightly inhabited Mosquito Coast first.

4PM CDT Still Cat 4, wind down to 135 pressure up to 953mb, still heading West towards Cabo Gracias a Dios.

Position: 14.3 N/77.8 W.
Movement: West [280°] near 21 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 160 mph [Cat 5].
Gusts: 200mph
Minimum central pressure: 940 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 30 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 365 miles East of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua/Honduras border.

The pressure has come up 10 mb overnight and the winds dropped 5 mph. The eye looks a little ragged. This gives hope of some weakening before landfall.

It has been moving more to the due West pulling the forecast track to the South. This puts landfall in northeastern Nicaragua and then plowing through Honduras, rather than passing by to the North and slamming the Yucatan like Dean. Felix is still a small, tightly wound storm, so wind damage will be limited to a small area. If it expands before landfall and starts drawing moisture from the Pacific as well as the Caribbean, the water damage will be much greater.

Update: Dr. Jeff Masters reports that Felix now holds the record for intensification from formation as a tropical depression to becoming a Category 5 hurricane: 51 hours. Most storms spend more time than that becoming a Category 1 hurricane.

As Yucatan and the Bay of Campeche wait for another visit from a Category 5 storm, people died around Acapulco as a result of rains and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Henriette on the Pacific coast.  Henriette is on track to become a hurricane before it hits Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja California Sur and then heading in to the Gulf of California.

2007 is not a good year for weather in Mexico.

Position: 13.8 N/72.9 W.
Movement: West Northwest [285°] near 18 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 165 mph [Cat 5].
Gusts: 200mph
Minimum central pressure: 934 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 25 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 390 miles Southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

The conditions around the eye are so bad that a NOAA aircraft aborted its mission. The second hurricane and second Cat 5. We may not get as many as predicted this season, but the ones we get are monsters.

10PM CDT Update:

Position: 13.9 N/73.9 W.
Movement: West [280°] near 21 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 165 mph [Cat 5].
Gusts: 200mph
Minimum central pressure: 930 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 25 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 345 miles Southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

Dr. Cole notes there’s an article in the Times that says the US has 1200 targets that will take out the Iranian military in three days.

Lebanon. You remember the recent unpleasantness in Lebanon. The Israeli air force pounded things for 30 days and Hezollah was still dropping rockets into Israel. The Israelis thought they had great intelligence, air supremacy, and veteran fighters, but they couldn’t take out Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s military leadership was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. One would assume that the Iranians are using some or all of the same tactics used by Hezbollah in their own country.

A US attack on Iran will be viewed as an existential threat by Iran. They will react with everything they have, so you can forget oil production out of the Persian Gulf for months, if not years. The world economy will tank. The American economy will tank. The Shi’ia in Iraq will launch an all-out attack on US forces. It will be a disaster.

The response of these idiots to hurricane Katrina is a prime example of their competence. They lied us into an unnecessary and unwise war with Iraq. What is the point in starting more wars we can’t win?

Pull out of Iraq. Finish the job in Afghanistan. Catch Osama bin Laden. Rebuild the Gulf Coast. Those are doable, worthwhile objectives.

[edited for spelling errors – rants are like that.]

Position: 13.6 N/72.0 W.
Movement: West Northwest [285°] near 19 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 140 mph [Cat 4].
Gusts: 165mph
Minimum central pressure: 956 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 25 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 440 miles Southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

It is now forecast that Felix will become a major Cat 5 hurricane before landfall on the Yucatan. The central pressure has been dropping at a rate of 3.4mb per hour and the eye is contracting.

Position: 13.4 N/71.2 W [1PM CDT].
Movement: West Northwest [285°] near 18 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 125 mph [Cat 3].
Gusts: 150mph
Minimum central pressure: 964 mb.
Hurricane Force Wind Radius: 15 miles.
Tropical Storm Force Wind Radius: 115 miles.

It currently 490 miles Southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

It is now forecast that Felix will become a major Cat 4 hurricane before landfall on the Yucatan. It is still a very tight storm spinning up two levels in about 6 hours. With luck it will have an eyewall replacement cycle before landfall and lose some punch, but it will expand in size as that happens which is not good news for northern Honduras, as it will bring heavy rains and the flooding and landslides associated with the rainfall.