TD 4 is heading west and expected to become a Tropical Storm within 24 hours and a hurricane by Friday morning. The storm is expected to be south east of Puerto Rico by the time it upgrades to hurricane
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Tropical Depression 4 Forms in Atlantic
Thanks, Floridian!! Here we go...
(sigh)...........................
I'm really, really, really getting too old for this. The adrenlin rush (of the last 55 years in Florida) doesn't seem to be able to overcome the arthritis and old age. I no longer have the urge to rush down to the beach and watch the storm come in! LOL
Anyway........come what may, just remember we're all in this together no matter where "it" lands (if "it" does) and always...
Hang on Sloopy!!!!!!
Pati
The season has officially begun with the first "Hang on Sloopy"
Thanks (I think) Pati!
LOL
this one will be named "Dean", my mother's middle name, and Jessica's (my sister's child) middle name also. Both of them had/have a nasty streak.
patischell...2004 and 2005 were hard to believe.
Wilma red tagged us out of northern Palm Beach County. My claim to fame now is to have moved from Florida to Connecticut in January (January 3rd to be precise).
My mom was with her dad at the beach when the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 hit. They had little idea what was coming.
Then she was with me in Jupiter, FL when we had two CAT 3 storms pass over head within three weeks in 2004.
For someone who hates storms, she's had quite a record. Hope she doesn't add to it this year in Connecticut.
Hi David-Paul. My timing seems to be kinda' like your Mom's. LOL I lived in Miami 50 years (Andrew was my biggie) then moved here to be near my children. Just got settled in time for the 2004-2005 seasons!
Pati
(Connecticut in January? Brrrrrr.....take my chances with the occasional hurricane!)
Pati
TD4 is now Tropical Storm Dean
From Public Advisory 5:
Maximum sustained winds are near 40mph...65km/hr...with higher gusts. Some gradual strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours
Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 35 miles...55km mainly to the north of the center
Estimated minimum central pressure is 1004 mb...29.65 inches.
She is moving west at 23mph...37km/hr...fast!
Hey y'all...just looked up the Hawaii membership and found them chatting about their 'cane. They just had a 5. earthquake this morning while preparing for the storm!
I think Mother Nature has PMS big time!
Pati
Here's the Weather Underground 5 day track
Pati
Yikes, Pati! A hurricane is plenty bad enough without an earthquake thrown in. I didn't realize there was a hurricane headed their way.
Imagine! An earthquake and a hurricane in one day! We haven't been getting a lot of reports about Hawai'i other than Flossie sideswiped the Big Island and has been downgraded to TS status. I guess everyone here is more intent on TS Dean.
Tropical Storm Dean grew stronger over Tuesday night and may be a hurricane within the next 24 to 36 hours.
It continues to move westward at 18 mph. Sustained winds are now near 50mph with higher gusts and storm force winds extend outward about 50 miles
It seems the spaghetti models are coming together a bit more to forecast the storm going south of the Caribbean Islands. But we know how much can change in the course of 24 hours
What is kinda scary is that Gulf temps (at least near the Florida coast) are sitting at 89* - fuel for any storm
Here's the 1-2-3 map from NOAA. Shows both our beauties.
Pati
Gotta to watch this one.... here very hot and no rain but little windy from those tropical storm erin. We need rain! Very dry over here!
So...Overnight Dean became the first Atlantic hurricane of the season
The latest long-range forecast for Dean has the storm reaching destructive Category 4 status -- with winds of at least 131 mph -- by Monday in the western Caribbean between Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
Hurricane watches were issued Wednesday night for islands in the Lesser Antilles including St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saba and St. Eustatius, which means that hurricane conditions, with winds of at least 74 mph, are expected within 36 hours. A tropical storm watch was also issued for St. Maarten.
The forecast basically stops after that because they have no idea yet what will happen when the hurricane reaches the warm Gulf waters.
There have been predictions that Dean will be no threat to penninsular Florida but everyone along the Gulf coast needs to be prepared...now...not next week. I think the only good thing to come from Katrina is that hurricane awareness and preparedness is way up. I'll be the first to admit that after decades of hurricane watching we were very blasé about the whole thing. Not so anymore!
Here's an interesting lnk showing radar images of both storms. You can see the eye form on the Dean image. http://www.hurricanecity.com/closeup.htm
When I was younger (much), in the Coast Guard, and more foolish (very much), I used to love a good storm. It made me feel so alive to be out in the weather. Now I just take thanks for seeing each sunrise, the sun comes up, the day progresses and something is learned. Then it sets, and the world becomes dark once again and we wait for the next sunrise and that days surprise.
Today it is very overcast here and the sky is gray. There is no wind moving the leaves but I need to venture out for a bit. Just 'cause I can.
Thank you for the links for the cains
Oh Good grief.. where's this one headed?!?!? OI!
Somebody get out their box fan.. let's get this thing blown somewhere else..!!!
I have to say, AngelSong, this track isn't looking too good for either of us... http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/144524.shtml?5day#contents
Marylyn - Any chance it'll fizzle when it hits the Yucatan??? Please? Pretty please? :)
What a messy wet summer it's been.... I'm going to need to take up an indoor hobby .... Riding horses just isn't possible in this weather....
I think it's too soon to tell. They are expecting it to be a category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean Sea. Hitting land usually weakens the storms, but it depends on how much land it has to go over.. One of the models is expecting the storm to go farther north, which may make it miss the Yucatan altogether - or just barely graze it, which won't slow it down much at all.
We're having storms today, too. I don't know if our weather is from TS Erin or just a "regular" storm, but it's a mess either way. We'd rather have the ground be just a little dry when a hurricane hits - if it is already saturated where will all of the rain go? :-/
your storms today are from TS Erin, yes ma'am.
And I don't know where the rain will go once it's saturated. Same problem we're having here.
We have had dark and rain most of the morning, and thunder for hours. Too much rain to see many flashes. All the flashes were followed by thunder within 2 or 3 seconds, some less than one. Just light rain now. It now looks heavy in Houston, and over Galveston bay. (looking on Houston HD channel 11)
It's been thunderstorming here all morning, too. The storms have subsided - for now - but it's still raining. We have flash flood warnings here in Harris County, so all of the places that usually flood are going to do it again. Pretty normal stuff for us. :-)
I'm going to start another thread for Hurricane Dean, since it is officially a hurricane.
Pati~ Can't say that i feel left out, still up in NJ. But hang on.
and David~ I was in that 1938 NE hurricane. I was delivering papers in downtown Malden Square when the billboard signs started flying around.
Ugggghhhh.
Be well
: )
Send all the water you can spare to Virginia, the creeks are getting mighty slim.
Oh we can spare it for sure, Dyson! LOLOL How much would you like?
Drop all you can spare right here
http://enung.notlong.com
The red cross in the middle of the topo map marks the spot.
edited to say - I now hear distant thunder, hopefully it will get closer.
This message was edited Aug 16, 2007 5:33 PM
Flyboy....I came along after that Great New England Hurricane but grew up hearing about it. My grandfather took my mom and her twin sister to the beach in Madison to help him tie down his boat. They took one look, turned around for the mile drive home, were blocked by falling trees and spend the storm in the car.
We are a little spoiled today, donja think? If storm track forecasts are a little off, people get upset. But at least now we know they are out there. During the beautiful days before the storms of 2004/05 I always thought of how deceiving it must have been to the Spanish and those who came later. Perfect weather to go to the beach. Perfect sailing weather....but with a monster waiting just over the horizon...
It WAS a surprise.
: )
David - It's frustrating to get a lot of hype for nothing, and likewise irritating to hear "it won't be so bad", then end up homeless because all the precautions weren't taken.
Here, with Erin, we all braced up at work for a heavy Tropical Storm. Turns out we just got some heavy rain, nothing more. What a lot of man hours wasted moving things inside..... time that we could've better spent working on "real work".
AngelSong...in Florida we had the problem in 2005 of people not wanting to go to shelters after their experience in them in 2004. Can't fault the Red Cross and local authorities for that. They did a great job (hours after Wilma hit, one of the volunteers went home to check on her house, found parts of her roof torn off and slept on the floor with us for the next two days).
Latest advisory shows Dean tracking southward. Good for Texas not for Mexico. It's turning into a monster too. From NOAA at 8PM Sat:
"THE MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE JUST REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WAS 920 MB...27.17 INCHES."
Think Andrew was 930mb. Pray for Jamaica tonight. Those poor people.
It sounds like Caribblue may take a giant smack when it gets to the Caymans on Monday morning.
I don't blame the Red Cross & Locals for their actions. I blame the news media. They want a "big story". A good weather example? It rained almost two months straight in my neighborhood. Weather Channel covered about the first four days, then quit. It wasn't a big story anymore....
Lots of locals received FEMA aid, and had to move until their houses can be repaired from flood damage. It never made the news, which is pathetic & sad. Weather Channel had moved onto the next big story...