Storm in a tea cup: The weather thread

[Satchmo Distel]

They are to keep out mosquitoes, which can be horrendous down here. In our case, we can also let our cats have some fresh air without them escaping or being grabbed by a gator, as we have a lake.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Glad you're OK SD. My family in Houston just got power yesterday, so two weeks sounds realistic. Now the rush is on to find contractors to re-lay the floor and do the dry-walling.

[Satchmo Distel]

St Maarten's: the Americans are being airlifted but what's happening to the rest? Live and let die?

[ursus arctos]

On the French side, there's a great deal of controversy that white tourists were airlifted out before any locals (let alone locals of colour)

[ursus arctos]

Really pleased to know that you made it through as well as you did, Satchmo. Are you in Naples, or further north?

Flynnie, is your mom a Californian?

In ms ursus' family, even recognising Florida as a state risks being disinherited

[Ginger Yellow]

It's true that Naples escaped the storm surge because Irma took a 20 mile turn to a more easterly path after the Keys, but it is expecting a ridiculous degree of precision to believe that this should have been predicted, and it is absurd to demand that officials do not operate from the worst case scenario.

Not least because the reason it was so hard to predict is that it was bigger and stronger than anything that had ever been seen before in that part of the Atlantic.

[Gangster Octopus]

Glad to see you're ok, Satchy old thing.

[blameless]

Meanwhile back over here, the Met Office embarrasses itself by declaring this slight draught to be a storm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41241014

Not only are those winds speeds (gusts of 58 to 74mph) feeble by comparison with what's going on in the Caribbean and SE USA, they're not even noteworthy by UK levels; parts of the Hebrides get sustained winds of 100mph three or four times a year, with the gusts reaching 130.

[Third rate Leszno]

Glad to hear you're ok and relatively unaffected, SD.

[Hot Pepsi]

My brother and his house is pretty much unscathed. He even has power, although there's a precarious branch lying on some power lines in the back yard.

But just because Tampa St. Pete didn't take the beating they feared, it's still a pretty big disaster overall. I don't know what to do for those people. It's a human fucking travesty that we leave this stuff to small charities and professional sports franchises to raise money. This is what the military should do and all it should do (then it wouldn't be called military, I guess). But imagine if we spent a billion zillion on preparing to handle human tragedies.

[Satchmo Distel]

Really pleased to know that you made it through as well as you did, Satchmo. Are you in Naples, or further north?

Thanks, ursus. I am in the north east corner of Naples, far enough east that I never had to worry about storm surge. There is freshwater flooding over much of inland Florida but we dodged that too. The rural areas are going to be without power longest; it is FPL policy to do urban centers first.

Shocking news today about the deaths of special needs folk in Miami who were not evacuated and seem to have died from the heat. I think more cases like that will emerge.

[ursus arctos]

The death toll from heat stroke in a retirement home in Hollywood Hills that lost air conditioning is now up to eight.

Downtown Miami

[Satchmo Distel]

I have power back but no Internet or TV. Schools in Lee County will be closed until September 25, i.e. another 10 days from now. I am due to resume teaching this Monday, 18th, but that may be put back as half the students are still without power and the campuses are not in great shape (classrooms have power but who knows what state the technology will be in?).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Daniel DaleVerified account
@ddale8
Florida nursing home where 8 people died claims it had called Gov. Rick Scott's personal cell for help; he denies:

Is there any chance this might be true?

[anton pulisov]

So now Hurricane Maria is projected to plough straight through Puerto Rico as a major hurricane, before regrouping and taking aim at the Carolinas late next week.

At least according to the very interesting www.ventusky.com website of weather model projections.

[anton pulisov]

Last I checked it was Cat 3, now it is Cat 5.

[San Bernardhinault]

Shit. And its track has now changed so rather than splitting Dominica and Martinique, the eye looks like it's going straight over Dominica.

[ursus arctos]

[ursus arctos]

Is there any chance this might be true?

It's absolutely true. No one has challenged it.

[ursus arctos]

Only the second time in history (2007) that there have been two Category Five landfalls in the Atlantic in the same year

[Satchmo Distel]

It seems the difference between the Irma and Maria tracks is that high pressure steers the track farther West, but the presence of Jose in the Atlantic has pushed that high pressure out, so Maria will steer east into that vacuum, missing Florida.

[anton pulisov]

The death toll from heat stroke in a retirement home in Hollywood Hills that lost air conditioning is now up to eight.

Downtown Miami

Nature trying to help out with the coastal protection by building some dunes.

[beak]

sur les pavés, la plage..

[Satchmo Distel]

Tortola seems utterly fucked. All the protections were devastated by Irma (shelters etc) so the death toll could be far higher from the Irma-Maria 1-2 than in a one-off event.

And the Hatemail's nasty racist response?: "Paradise at the mercy of rapists and murderers."

[Satchmo Distel]

Tortola seems utterly fucked. All the protections were devastated by Irma (shelters etc) so the death toll could be far higher from the Irma-Maria 1-2 than in a one-off event.

And the Hatemail's nasty racist response?: "Paradise at the mercy of rapists and murderers"