Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
[Hurricanes/Tropical Storms] - Katia turns away, Nate in Mexico, Maria in Atlantic
Posts
It's similar to what happened with hurricane Ivan and hurricane Frances in 2004. They moved up through the Appalachian mountains and while they didn't still have the wind power they had when they first hit the coast, they dumped nearly 40 inches of rain combined in less than 10 days in some places. In the mountains, all that water goes downhill, and takes anything that isn't the mountain. A 400 foot section of roadway that I used to get to my college literally washed down the mountain, small creeks and rivers cut hundred foot wide paths and took bridges along with them.
The most recent report is there's a good chance it will follow Irene's path.
Several trees fell in my backyard, crushed a few fences and closed off our street. We had a well so with no electricity meant no water, though we had filled buckets with water and stored them in the bathroom for washing/flushing. Funny thing is those barrels were originally used for pickles...so we were starting to smell like pickles. Overall we didn't have it too bad. No power/water for 4.5 days and no major damage to the house/vehicles.
Seeing those pictures from Alyce and the others is an eye opener - stay safe all!
To the person who says Katia is following the same track, so far it doesn't look the same, but it's too early to tell. If that happens.. Ugh. I don't even want to think about it at this point, but I know we'll be staying somewhere else.
Fun times. Vermont, start your sump pumps!
There's a pretty thin line between getting pulled out to sea and going inland in the historical paths. Current predictions show it right in the middle.
Also, that track on Katia is more than a bit scary looking. I didn't need to see that.
Katia started further back in the Atlantic than Irene, so she has time to either intensify or die out. Her track is going to depend on the troughs and the currents.
(side note, this would have been the year that Katrina was used again since most names on the Hurricane list are recycled every 6 years or so, but due to the enormous bitch that Katrina was, her name was retired, so they convened their nifty council and picked Katia to replace her in the list).
It's been said before about Irene being slow, massive, and carrying a lot of water. There's also the whole fact that Hurricanes don't usually go up that track. Oh, they'll go up along the coast, but most of the time they're farther out to sea and the states get some rain and wind, mostly tropical storms since by then the storm has died down because of the colder water.
Lee formed willy nilly out in the Gulf and that wasn't very nice of him, but Katia was watchable even a couple days ago. Around this time of year, most of the big hurricanes from the last few years have been storm systems coming off the west coast of Africa. They're usually really easy to spot on the radars on the weather channel's site, or they used to be. But yeah.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
Or they cut across the country and lose power since they aren't over water any more. Irene just rode the fucking coast.
Forget TWC, just get it from the source. The big secret behind TWC/Accuweather/etc is that 99% of their stuff is just a repackaging of NHC/SPC/NWS data with better graphics. Also gives you access to the forecast discussions which talk about their reasoning for the forecast.
With Katia, the day 4/5+ forecasts are really uncertain because a lot of it has to do with how TS Lee's remnants interact with a trough coming through. If it gets left behind, it'll create a weakness that will steer Katia back to the west. If it gets integrated with the trough, then Katia should get pulled out to sea.
Also, this image is the forecast rainfall for the US for the next 5 days (from the Hydrological Prediction Center, another NOAA office that TWC jacks data from):
Yeah, I get my weather from NOAA. More accurate and less panic.
I think we lost power for about 5-6 hours, but I had wired a generator into the electrical panel last winter. I plugged it in/turned it on and the whole house was running. Generators are so worth it, heh. We definitely need one as our heat is from pellet stove/oil furnace, which means we're screwed if the electricity goes out for long periods of time over the winter. Having a well (pump) also means you're stuck without water quite quickly once your holding tank depressurizes.
What I'm trying to say is if any of you other states want to donate some of that rain we wouldn't mind. The flooding sucks for you and we could use a little water. Even if that would be socialism.
Looks more likely that it will reach peak strength as a category 2 between Bermuda and the US before getting swept out to sea without making landfall. Still very much up in the air though.
How have things been in Vermont? Any improvement?
Stack Exchange | http://www.mpdevblog.blogspot.com
Yeah, I looked at it and thought "of course there's a big fat blank spot on Texas with rain on virtually all sides..."
Have y'all seen Lake Travis lately, just outside of Austin? Or what the drought has done to our farmers? Texas would happily take a hurricane or two head on between Corpus Christi and Galveston.
Glad to hear you did ok. Things here are improving slowly. The National Guard is mobilized all over the state, and they've come in from all over the country to help. FEMA workers are here, as well, and some of them have come from as far as Illinois. Most of the towns that were cut off have been reconnected in some way, usually through grating whatever dirt is left under the pavement and adding gravel. We still have a few places that are cut off, and the ones that have reconnected have to take some really long ways around to get anywhere (again, what cut them off were often bridges rather than roads). Also, a number of towns are still without water and power. They've been cooking for their communities at the local town halls, fire departments, schools, and anywhere there's room. People have to truck water in to cook with, and they're still actively looking for any food donations they can get. It felt good to be a part of that yesterday - one of the towns came to our store looking for a donation of eggs, we gave them a small one, and I started making announcements to people in the store. Got lots more, and as luck would have it, a chicken farmer was in shopping at the same time, and just so happened to have no where to send her eggs. :^:
We're all a bit jumpy over the rain headed our way, and the whole state is under a flash flood watch until Tuesday night. In the meantime, we're all trying to get things back to normal.
Like I said, we're trying to get back to normal. It's still pretty incredible.
Funny note - there's a group of three people running a Facebook page that's getting news out, helping coordinate donations and such. They e-mailed P&G about the possibility of the Tide truck coming to Vermont (they drive around to disaster areas and wash clothing for people). Their response:
... heh. I don't want to sound ungrateful, especially since they already pledged 40,000 pounds of cat and dog food to the Vermont Humane Society, but.. ouch. At least actually "insert" that disaster.
they didn't put....
wow.
Not much I can do from down here on this side of the world, but let me know if you think there is something you need that an expat can help with. even if it's just venting.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
These are the baseball fields at the end of my street in Branford, CT(there are 4 fields here - the only visible part is one of the pitcher mounds covered in Canadian Geese)
Here are some more from the house I used to live in (Milford, CT - 15' from the water):
EDIT: According to my old neighbor from across the street, the water actually hit a depth of just below the first floor windows.
I am updating this thread to be the Hurricane thread. We've had Katia threaten the east coast and run away, Lee form in the gulf and drop a shitload of rain all over the country, Maria heading toward the Lesser Antilles and the Virgin Islands/Puerto Rico, and now Nate forming in the gulf and heading right into Mexico.
Irene is probably going to be a retired name after this year, definitely I would say.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
Pretty sure if the storm causes any deaths and/or a large amount of damage the name is reitred
So yeah, we won't be seeing hurricane irene again