re: Hurricane Milton - The Cleanup Begins...

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TulaneLSU

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It went through an EWRC which we understand well.

It’s about to hit the hottest waters in the gulf and ventilating in all directions perfectly stacked.

RI flag is back on.

Pray

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Do we have a decent idea of where this is making landfall now or we anticipating more wobbles?

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Assuming no more wobbles, it’s tracking for landfall at Longboat Key.

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Could not imagine what that flight is like.
Fuuuuuuuuck all that.

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I thought our own TDer

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Herk Flyer

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was a HH pilot.

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Why are Hurricane Hunter planes prop aircraft?

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The reason for the modest speed (by modern standards) and the turbo-props is so they can fly fairly slowly through a hurricane. A faster jet aircraft would come out the other side with its wings torn off. Hurricane hunter planes are specially fitted out for their work with an impressive range of instruments.

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DeCat posted a link to an awesome storm surge map. You can zoom in to your house.b

St

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Very cool tool. Even at the 13 foot max plus 10%, it looks to stay away from us. We dont really have any rivers or inlets close to us. We had some streets and ponds flood a little with Debby but that was the most rain ever recorded in this area, over 15".

Right now, my drive to FLL is less than 3 hours. I am going to monitor that all day. We can get out of here pretty quick but I am hearing bad things on the roads...

be safe Bruddah - your my fav AU poster, can't have anything happen to ya

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The storm surge can can cause flooding miles inland. It’s going to backfill every canal, creek and tributary. It can even reverse flow a river. You have to remember it’s going to be billions of gallons of water pushing into the costal area.

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This is exactly what happened to our home during Katrina. Water from the Sound surged up the tributaries and caused flooding from the bayou (normally more like a ditch—and certainly not navigable) behind our house. I remember hearing that the surge is actually magnified in those tributaries, but I am not 100% sure of that. I just remember hearing it from someone post-Katrina.

This is going to be awful for a lot of people. But that thing is beautiful

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Absolutely. Not apples to apples because so much of coastal Louisiana is flat marsh, but surges from Rita and Ike caused flooding throughout Lake Charles. This was from the surge pushing into the Lake, then into drainage canals and tributaries than run throughout the city. The city wasn’t inundated, but there was major flooding. As the crow flies, downtown Lake Charles is 30 miles from the GOM.

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Agreed…geography plays a huge part of surge. Coastal Louisiana is its own animal when it comes to surge at least now there are levees that protect most of the population centers.

Wind direction and wave action can amplify surge. If you look at Katrina for instance, water was coming into the Mississippi Sound and Lake Ponchatrain and had nowhere to go but up. Which is why some areas of coastal Mississippi had over 20 feet in some locations. Also they were on right side of the system. They were bombarded with southerly winds for nearly the duration of the storm.

New Orleans got the double whammy, Lake Ponchatrain filled up with the southerly winds, and once the center passed to the East of New Orleans, the entire lake pushed up against the levees some of which were dumb since the levees that failed were inside the city along the canals and were not built as strong as the outer levees due to location near homes and cost. Now that is resolved since the canals are now blocked by the lake.

In other areas like St. Bernard, New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward, the levees were not high enough and too much water was allowed to funnel into those inner canals artificially increasing the height. That issue has been resolved with higher levees and water control structures that prevent water from entering those canals.

Florida has none of this. In many areas, canals are wide open to the gulf with houses adjacent to the shore or near canals where houses are built on the banks. See Hurricane Ian where in Cape Coral I believe there is a community where there is a network of canals in a neighborhood that flooded pretty easily due to it’s proximity to the gulf and canal network where there are no barriers to prevent surge from entering the canals.

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They keep saying it will back down to a 3. Tampa ABC morning weather dude just said if you are way from surge and in a house built since 2004, ride it out. He is confident those new codes will keep it strong

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Seems pretty irresponsible for a local weather man to give that kind of advice on TV

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Just curious, can the same information not be gathered by a drone instead of people flying into the storm?

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I think they’re too light frankly, but I’m no aerospace engineer.

ETA - NOAA launched a drone during Helene. It was dropped by the hurricane hunters.

See, told you I was dumb.

Seems like it’s easier to fly a traditional plane and then drop a drone than it is to do it all by drone.