re: Storm Watch- Gulf- Tropical Depression- Northward Miss. Valley

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Get your toilet paper now

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you mean you haven't been reselling it on the black market for 5 times cost?

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The way they are all trending a CAT 1 would not be a surprise. A CAT 3 would be a surprise but a 1 or even 2 not so much.

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Surprise might have been the wrong word. I meant usually when dry air is in the area, it always seems to find its way into the core hindering strengthening. A lot of the time when that dry air is in play, these things tend to be the sloppy messes that the GFS is pointing towards.

As always...lots of time...

Per a retired meteorologist I follow....

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New concerns about track and effects of the tropical cyclone threat from the Bay of Campeche.

Up until yesterday, the computer models were hinting at a prolonged rain event from what is now Tropical Depression 3 in the Bay of Campeche. Most of the scenarios painted were of a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane that would slow down and dump torrential rains on cities that have had their fill of such situations in recent years.

Now we are seeing two important changes in forecast guidance. The schemes are a little stronger and better defined with the circulation, with a landfall between Freeport TX and Franklin LA June 8. Instead of slowing down, the prospective Cristobal maintains a steady northward trajectory into Missouri, then interacts with an advancing cold front. That turns the storm to the right, moving through Ohio and Pennsylvania on June 11. The ECMWF precipitation total chart enables you to see the path of this system.

Because you are adding energy from the advancing associated trough, and shifting the system to more of a cold core structure, a solid core of strong winds (see two bottom maps) may occur along and 125 mile wither side of track scenario. While rainfall may be less (3-5"), tornado risks could be higher from TX/LA into the Corn Belt and Mid-Atlantic.

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May be time to test generators this week if the Euro holds that for the next couple days.

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...The backups are the only thing working....

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S&WB has been running their backup 25 cycle diesel generators (known as "EMD's," short for electromotive diesels) for multiple days running now. The noise is deafening. And it may indicate a shortfall in needed power if a severe rainstorm hits, a shortfall about which the public has not been informed.
These EMD generators were meant as last-line backups in case the S&WB's 25 cycle turbine-generators AND frequency changers failed. They were purchased and installed in 2017 following the floods on July 22 and August 5 that year. At that time, S&WB effectively had only 9.75 megawatts (MW) of self-generated 25 cycle power through their 25 cycle 6 MW steam-driven turbine 1 and from their 60 cycle turbine 6, routed through a 3.75 MW frequency changer on the Carrollton Plant, uncreatively known as the "Plant Frequency Changer." 20.5 MW of 25 cycle power from four other frequency changers connected to Entergy (and then backed up by diesel generators) was also available in late 2017 and early 2018.
As turbines 3 (nameplate: 15 MW, current capacity: 6 MW, steam-driven), 4 (nameplate and current capacities: 20 MW, steam-driven), and 5 (nameplate capacity: 20 MW, current capacity: zero, natural gas-driven) came back online through 2018, the need for the EMD's diminished. That's good, because there seemed to be all kinds of problems with the EMD's, including a failure during testing of one of them that took months to fix.
But now turbine 5, the only non-steam-driven turbine, is out of commission due to it exploding in December. Thus, the main workhorses of the S&WB 25 cycle power mix - the turbines - are all dependent on steam generated by mostly ancient boilers. The frequency changers and EMD's are still mostly in reserve, but have assumed greater importance with the loss of 20 MW from turbine 5.


1) There are at least three EMD's running all day every day. Each EMD has a capacity of 2.5 MW. This would mean they are feeding a demand of between 5 MW and 7.5 MW.
2) The "base load" of 25 cycle power (when it isn't raining) for the S&WB across water, sewer, and drainage systems ranges from about 3 to 6 MW.
3) There doesn't appear to be any steam coming out of the stacks from the turbines and boilers in the powerhouse.
4) S&WB made no voluntary detailed updates about the state of the power mix or the state of east bank water pumping at the May 20, 2020 Board of Directors meeting, a major omission which was the first of its kind in over two years. The omission came on the eve of hurricane season and was not questioned by the Mayor or any boardmembers. The only update we have was because S&WB was mandated to do so by state law, a mandate S&WB tried to get changed in the state legislature this year.
5) No notice has been given to public or media through S&WB's Twitter feed, Facebook newsfeed, or press release website to explain what is happening with the EMD's.
6) S&WB has said repeatedly in the past that the maximum power they need for a serious rainstorm is 51 MW. According to the May 14 storm report, if one takes all three steam turbines out of the mix as appears to be the case for the last few days, they have a maximum of 34.25 MW available through four EMD's and five frequency changers. That is, unless they can flip a switch on their boilers and turbines to bring them back to life at a moment's notice (unlikely if, as I theorize below, they are in the middle of a multi-day boiler room outage), they appear to be running with a certain sizable amount of risk to the city, especially if a storm blows up suddenly.
...There's a few suppositions one can make:
A) S&WB is up to its usual tricks of not revealing anything unless they are forced to. Apparently, they think no one will notice 90 dB of noise crashing across two parishes for days on end.
B) The EMD's are running instead of all three turbines to carry the S&WB base load for days.
C) The EMD's are possibly running instead of just one or two of the frequency changers for days.
D) All three steam-driven turbines (numbers 1, 3, and 4) appear to be down, along with the boiler room.
From this, one can draw the following possible conclusions:
- Possibility 1: The S&WB has made a choice to run multiple EMD's for multiple days due to some sort of major maintenance happening in the powerhouse on something that affects all three remaining 25 cycle turbines. Since all three turbines run on steam, a boiler room outage seems like a possible cause. Open questions from this possibility include: 1) whether the outage was planned or not, 2) if it was planned, how long it was planned for, 3) whether they had a choice to perform it earlier in the year when the danger of storms was less, 4) why they are running the more complicated EMD's instead of the much simpler frequency changers, 5) how quickly they can restart turbines in case of a true drainage emergency, and 6) who if anyone in city government was informed of this outage, and if they were informed, why the public was not.
- Possibility 2: Effectively the same as possibility 1, but the outage was an unplanned one. That is, something so bad happened to all three turbines or a bunch of boilers (there are six) that it forced S&WB into running multiple EMD's. However, this seems unlikely, because the EMD's are far more complicated pieces of equipment than frequency changers and are thus riskier to run, especially if the S&WB were in an emergency situation. Note that the lack of notice of such an emergency does not preclude its possibility. S&WB hid losses of turbines from policymakers, their own board, and the public multiple times throughout 2017 before the August 5 floods.
To be clear, I am fully aware of the need for major maintenance, especially on a system as old as this one (though it's also a system that has had hundreds of millions of federal dollars poured into it over the past decade). And with the loss of their only natural gas-fired 25 cycle turbine, if they have steam generation problems, taking all three remaining 25 cycle turbines out of service is kind of their only choice.
What I object to is the total lack of notice to anyone:
- No notice to the neighbors and others nearby who are having 90 dB of noise drilling into their heads day and night.
- No notice to the boardmembers and city policymakers who need to be told about such a drastic dropoff in available power during spring rainstorms season, especially fewer than two years after full power capacity was restored at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars.
- No notice to the public and media that drainage could be severely curtailed for any amount of time, and that they may need to take measures in case power cannot be ramped up to a required amount quickly enough.
S&WB needs to address this yesterday, in a public and open way. If they knew this was scheduled and decided to say nothing, executive director Ghassan Korban and his leadership team need to be called on the carpet for the ultimate in lack of transparency.
Fewer than three years ago, the city flooded because there was effectively no turbine power, and no one in the public knew it. It appears the S&WB is now running with no turbine power, yet they have not told the public about it. They never seem to learn.

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I see you're in Pineville. You are welcome here any time as long as you go hunt down Jaclynn Crooks and bring her with you. I'll have your gumbo in a nice insulated to-go pack for you when you drop her off.

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4 years ago when I moved up here I was living in Pineville and working in Alexandria

4 years later... it's flipped... live in Ellick & work in P-ville

and yeah... ummm... Crooks... I'll get right on her... I mean that... I'll get right on that

How about some satellite imagery?

I don’t know who that is, but my money says she has several children all by different dudes.

Anyway. Looks like the GFS and Euro are starting to get into closer agreement. Also kinda looks like one of those lopsided storms where the center of circulation is no where near the areas that will be the most affected.

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I don’t know who that is, but my money says she has several children all by different dudes.

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My wife certainly didn't look like that after children.

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I've noticed that suddenly all the weather folks are pronouncing it as Cam-peech-A and it annoys the crap out of me too. I never remember hearing it pronounced that way and then suddenly it's like they all got a lesson in how to pronounce it. I say Cam-peech-E.

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Yeah I have noticed all the Houston ones that I watch have been saying it as camp-pech-A.