Storm in a tea cup: The weather thread

[Lang Spoon]

Hurricane for Dacre's gaff tomorrow. Destroy every stone of his huntin and shootin syphillitic Victorian kitsch pile.

[ursus arctos]

Maria has knocked out electricity for the entire island of Puerto Rico

[Lang Spoon]

Jesus

[ursus arctos]

The Mayor of San Juan believes that it will take from four to six MONTHS to restore power.

[San Bernardhinault]

I saw a ticker go past with that headline on, and I assumed it must just mean the people in the most remote locations. Do they think 4 months to get generation back online?

[ursus arctos]

She wasn't specific, but there appears to be catastrophic damage to both generation and transmission assets, many of which were already damaged by Irma.

[Satchmo Distel]

FGCU students are unhappy that their semester has been extended to December 23 to make up for lost days

http://www.news-press.com/story/news...nts/680340001/

It's a tricky one. FGCU is under external funding pressure to maintain the academic difficulty of the degree but December 23 is harsh on students living out of state, some of whom spent a week without power.

At the very least, there is a communication issue: the University needs to put down a written lost days policy which students sign up to when they enroll.

[anton pulisov]

Antoinette P might be finally moving back to her flat next week, 50+ days after Harvey hit.

Meanwhile, things not looking good for NOLA



The hurricane season that just keeps on giving.

[ursus arctos]

A number of separate wildfires in California Wine Country and further north have gotten very bad very quickly

Over 1,500 structures destroyed, tens of thousands of residents evacuated, at least three dead and few, if any, of the blazes yet under control.

One of the major fires is on the edge of a very well known resort in Napa that just hosted a PGA golf tournament this weekend.

[Hot Pepsi]

It’s still too damn hot here.

[ursus arctos]

The death toll in California has reached ten

[Satchmo Distel]

98F when I was driving home today. We might get a cool day or two in January.

[San Bernardhinault]

I've had a few friends get evacuated in Napa/Sonoma. I can hardly fathom how big the Tubbs fire is given that it seems to be burning houses down in Santa Rosa, as well as burning wineries in Calistoga.

[ursus arctos]

Just to make things more interesting, a 4.1 quake near San Jose, felt in San Francisco.

[Bruno]

All's we need is to establish that earthquakes are also linked to climate change. Other than indirectly through the push for more fracking, that is.

[ursus arctos]

A map of the Tubbs Fire



Santa Rosa is at the bottom of the map, Windsor at the centre-left edge and Calistoga in the top right corner. US Highway 101, which pretty much anyone who has ever been to Northern California would have been on at some point, is the diagonal road edged in red going from the bottom edge to centre-left (as you can see the fire is on both sides of the major highway, which is unusual). There is another fire in Wine Country of roughly the same size, as well as numerous smaller fires as far north as Mendocino and beyond. There are also fires in Orange County in SoCal.

[San Bernardhinault]

Those hills between Santa Rosa and Napa are both very steep, and very heavily wooded. So with a long warm dry season and warm winds, there's going to be an absolute ton of fuel to burn and very little access for firefighters except from the air. There's also going to be a handful of wineries up there, although I think more wineries are getting hit by the Atlas Fire which seems to be down in the Napa Valley rather than on the hills. The most shocking thing about the Tubbs Fire is that they were unable to stop it before it reached properly built up areas - you often hear of isolated homes getting burned in California fires, but rarely of them making it into towns. The fire service is normally excellent at protecting large built up areas.

[linus]

They might have done a better job at protecting the area with a proper Canadair water bomber fleet, which even broke-ass countries like Greece maintain. You have a country whose most important state sits on a parched Mediterranean weather zone, a country which spends a trillion dollar every year on the military (60% of its citizens discretionary income), for that country to be outspent by Greece or Morocco in the maintenance of a waterbomber fleet is beyond ridiculous. I'm glad I'm no longer paying taxes there.

[ursus arctos]

The entire city of Calistoga is under an evacuation order

[ursus arctos]

23 Dead; 3,500 structures destroyed; 170,000 acres on fire

[Satchmo Distel]

Does FEMA apply to fires on the same basis as hurricanes? Are rebuilding costs likely to approach those of Houston and Florida?

[ursus arctos]

FEMA does have some fire responsibilities, but my understanding is that the rebuilding assistance is different, as their role with floods stems from federally-subsidised flood insurance, which is not the case with fires (as fire insurance is entirely private).

Death toll now up to 29, which exceeds that of 1991 Oakland Hills fire, the deadliest in recent memory.

My in-laws live in a house that was built after its predecessor was destroyed in that 1991 fire.

[anton pulisov]

So, global warming, not real at all. No sir.



What the fuck.

[Lang Spoon]

Holy shit. I don’t think my gaff will take that.

[Satchmo Distel]

FEMA does have some fire responsibilities, but my understanding is that the rebuilding assistance is different, as their role with floods stems from federally-subsidised flood insurance, which is not the case with fires (as fire insurance is entirely private).

Death toll now up to 29, which exceeds that of 1991 Oakland Hills fire, the deadliest in recent memory.

My in-laws live in a house that was built after its predecessor was destroyed in that 1991 fire.

Flood insurance is pretty much a no-brainer in SWFL. It helped us sleep more easily in the days before Irma. But some of the insurers are cowboys who were unilaterally cancelling policies last month; I'm not sure their losses would have been covered had the storm surge been more widespread and taken out downtown Naples and Fort Myers.