Storm in a tea cup: The weather thread

[ursus arctos]

Airports tend to close relatively late (say six hours before landfall), but airlines will cancel flights well in advance because they are terrified of having aircraft stranded during a major storm, even if the risk of direct damage in fairly low. Their current business model just can't accommodate a meaningful part of the fleet being out of service.

I was stranded at Heathrow when BA cancelled all of its flights into Nrw York before Sandy, even though we were scheduled to arrive almost 24 hours before landfall.

[Sam]

When I moved down here, my flight out of Heathrow was one of the last to leave Europe before that unpronounceable Icelandic volcano erupted and grounded flights across the continent for several days.

That's completely and totally irrelevant to the current discussion, but I was reminded of it. As you were.

[Ginger Yellow]

Jesus, that path is brutal. Especially for Haiti so soon after the earthquake.

[Satchmo Distel]

It's the worst path I have seen since Wilma, and maybe worse than that. I think 1987 and 1992 would be the parallels before Wilma but my knowledge of them is hazy. We had one in the 1920s that killed thousands, mainly West Palm Beach going west as far as Clewiston (today's State Road 80 roughly). Led to huge barrier being built around Lake Okeechobee.

[Guy Profumo]

Surely someone could have come up with "Aunt Irma Visits" for this segment of the thread?

[ursus arctos]

Irma is now a Category 5 hurricane

[Ginger Yellow]

Latest advisory:

Reports from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that
the maximum sustained winds are near 180 mph (285 km/h) with higher
gusts.

Christ almighty.

[San Bernardhinault]

The growth is insane. Jesus. And places like Antigua (let alone Hispaniola) are not nearly as well equipped to handle this as Florida is.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Irma la not very douce at all.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Live map coverage. You can zoom in.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren....56,11.34,1724

[San Bernardhinault]

I understand that this is very wrong of me to think this, but if we're going to have a Category 5 hurricane on this track the least it could do for us would be a direct hit on Mar A Lago?

[Lang Spoon]

Oh puhlease make it so. Storm the Winter Palace!

[Guy Profumo]

Branson:

https://www.aol.com/article/weather/...land/23197992/

"We had some lovely guests staying on Necker Island who have cut their trip short for safety reasons, and another group of guests have also postponed," Branson said in a statement on the Virgin Group website. "I will be on Necker alongside our team, as I have been on the three times we have had hurricanes over the past 30 years."

[Guy Profumo]

Um.

Has "Harvey" regained its identity off the East Coast of Florida?

https://www.windy.com/?100m,2017-09-....333,-84.902,4

(Edit: ignore that, that's Irma, and it's the forecast for Monday)

[Guy Profumo]

Reports coming in that all contact with Barbuda has been lost.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't know if this belongs on this thread, on the WTF thread, or on the Trump thread...

But Polk County, Fl, Sheriff tweeted:

"If you go to a shelter for #Irma and you have a warrant, we'll gladly escort you to the safe and secure shelter called the Polk County Jail"

[Guy Profumo]

Why would someone who's carrying a warrant be incarcerated?

[ursus arctos]

Because they are unable to pay the no doubt ridiculous bail that Polk County has set for the no doubt minor offence that gave rise to the warrant.

A significant percentage of the inmates in local jails in this country are awaiting trial.

[Etienne]

Barbuda seems to have been levelled, almost literally.

[Etienne]

I was assuming that Guy was being pedantic. But that's only because I always assume that.

[Satchmo Distel]

All universities in SWFL are closed Thurs-Fri and some have already given up on Monday. This turned out to be unnecessary 12 months ago when the centre was pretty much as tracked for Irma, but Irma has a far wider cone so SWFL will get a lot more wind and rain than then, and is still saturated from Harvey.

[Bruno]

It almost feels like the news channels are fixated on what might happen to Florida without much thought for Puerto Rico, home of 3.5 million US citizens about to get strafed.

[Incandenza]

Reports coming in that all contact with Barbuda has been lost.

A tweet which has screencaps of a Twitter thread (the original poster took them down after receiving rape and death threats, thanks Twitter): https://twitter.com/ReaganTHill/stat...41388435107841

Basically, the Antigua PM flew over Barbuda and seemed to say that the island looks completely demolished.

[Hot Pepsi]

Because they are unable to pay the no diubt ridiculous bail that Polk County has set for the no doubt minor offence that gave rise to the warrant.

A significant percentage of the inmates in local jails in this country are awaiting trial.

Something like 80% of the inhabitants of Rikers Island haven't been convicted of anything.

[Hot Pepsi]

Something like 80% of the inhabitants of Rikers Island haven't been convicted of anything.

My brother is staying in St Petersburg because he's the head of a public agency (transit) while his family evacuates. I'm a bit concerned.

I wasn't too concerned about the people in the islands because I figured, wrongly, that they get hit so often that they've got everything pretty well nailed down and prepared. After all, they've been there for hundreds of years and hundreds of hurricanes. But that's not the case, apparently. My God.