Hurricane Lost Steam as Experts Misjudged Structure and Next Move

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

It began as something far off and dangerous — a monster storm, a Category 3 hurricane that packed winds of 115 miles an hour as it buzz-sawed through the Caribbean last week, causing more than a billion dollars of destruction in the Bahamas alone.

But when Hurricane Irene finally chugged into the New York area on Sunday, it was like an overweight jogger just holding on at the end of a run. Its winds had diminished to barely hurricane strength, and the threat from its storm surge, which officials had once worried might turn Manhattan into Atlantis, was epitomized by television news reports showing small waves lapping over reporters’ feet.

All hurricanes evolve, and most weaken, as they track northward, their size and strength affected by water, wind and terrain. And all hurricanes eventually die — a relatively quick downgrade to a tropical storm in the case of those, like Irene, that travel inland, a more lingering demise for those that trail out to the colder waters of the higher latitudes.

But Irene’s fall — from potential storm of the century to an also-ran in hurricane lore — was greater than most.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/us/29forecast.html

[FLAprogressive]

1. Also-ran? It killed 20 in the US alone. The world does not revolve around New York.

[No Elephants]

29. The OP article is clear that Irene was a bigger storm before it arrived in NY.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. How stupid. Just because it dodged NYC?

How many without power? How many died?

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Exactly. 4mm/21 and counting.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. This idiot evidently hasn't seen video of the mess in Vermont.

[October]

6. Really.

https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2Fvi8rXQx&h=fAQCxdbxa&refid=28

And this one... above... from Massachusetts.


Honestly, it's like people are disappointed that more didn't die, or that there wasn't more destruction, interruption or mayhem.

We're all exhausted enough.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Also-ran? Tell that to Vermont, NJ and the Catskills - and the 21 who have died (so far)

This should be moved to the Op-Ed paged and filed under "If it didn't affect NYC, it matters not".

[October]

7. And Pennsylvania.

We're expecting our river to surge/crest tomorrow...

The worst isn't over for our town.

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. I am sorry to hear that!

I am in eastern PA and we got off VERY lightly. Being from hurricane land, I know not to underestimate these storms (and the differences between our soil/plants/population/infrastructure) and am really getting sick of the "it wasn't a *real* storm" snark.

[Lugnut]

23. I'm in the western PA Poconos.

We fared very well from this storm which was pure luck. I remember the destruction and loss of life from a period in the 1950s when we had several devastating hurricanes and tropical storms. TS Agnes in 1972 wiped out a lot of the Wyoming Valley when the Susquehanna River flooded the towns on its banks. My elderly aunt and uncle lost everything including their home.

Every storm is a real storm that might change its characteristics as it moves along. Meteorologists try to guess what it will do based on computer models that are guessing too.

[Odin2005]

38. Some people in the big cities think only they matter, the rest of us are mere "provincials"

[bullwinkle428]

8. Remember how New Orleans was supposed to be grateful they "dodged the bullet"

when Katrina hit further east than predicted?

[uppityperson]

16. And how the focus is basically on NewOrleans, not the rest of LA, MS, AL?

There is more to these storms than cities

[No Elephants]

30. The eye of the storm did miss NOLA. However, NOLA suffered from a breached levees disaster.

"In the City of New Orleans, the storm surge caused more than 50 breaches in drainage canal levees and also in navigational canal levees and precipitated the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States.<3>

By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.5 m) of water. The famous French Quarter dodged the massive flooding experienced in other levee areas. Most of the city's levees designed and built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers broke somewhere, including the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal floodwall. These breaches were responsible for most of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.<4> Oil refining was stopped in the area, increasing oil prices worldwide.

Ninety percent of the residents of southeast Louisiana were evacuated in the most successful evacuation of a major urban area in the nation's history. Despite this, many remained (mainly the elderly and poor). The Louisiana Superdome was used for those who remained in the city. The city flooded due to the failure of the federally built levee system.<5> Many who remained in their homes had to swim for their lives, wade through deep water, or remain trapped in their attics or on their rooftops."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina_in_New_Orleans

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Right now there are 23 people trapped in the mountains in upstate NY.

They have no plumbing or electricity. There are children, babies and pregnant women. They are surrounded by water and have no way out because all the bridges have collapsed. But the hurricane was no big deal because it didn't flatten New York City.

:sarcasm:

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Listening to that on CNN as well.

[napoleon_in_rags]

12. I saw it coming:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1816725&mesg_id=1823517

I KNEW it would be little to it by the time it hit NYC. I will share my reasons: Basically, there is an unspoken agreement among scientists that a scientist will lose no cred for proposing a thoughtful theory that turns out wrong, or giving a thoughtful argument AGAINST a theory that later turns out right (e.g. Newton physics were wrong via relativity, still genius, Einstein was wrong in quantum mechanics critique, still genius) But all this changes when politics enters the equation, and what you had here was the threat of the perfect storm in the context of politics: Obama's Katrina, arriving just in time to leave NYC in ruins for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and following the weird earthquake nobody saw coming... all the psychological factors were there to make anybody who said it would be nothing look like an epic asshole if it was something...So all the sudden there was this cost associated with offering a counter argument to theories that it would hit NYC, so everybody who had one shut up and the science got skewed toward disaster.

That's my theory anyway. I'm offering it up because I think its effecting everything and putting us in a bad situation. IF science were like politics we'd still be in the dark ages because of some linguistic gaffe Newton made in a lecture would have ruined his career. Its time to get beyond the superficial gotcha stuff and focus on the meat of what's going on.

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. Well maybe you will get lucky next time

and the coming storm will blow up in all of our unprepared (and unevacuated faces).

Yay for scientists saving professional face! :woohoo:

(Then again, I am exhausted, so if I misunderstood - ignore)

[napoleon_in_rags]

41. I'm saying is politics skews science.

They over-reacted a bit in NYC due to the HORROR of a possible outcome that was extremely unlikely. What I'm saying is that case is no big deal, (good drill for real threat) but it does show a larger issue of political realities are trumping scientific realities, and that's a dangerous place to be.

[BeyondGeography]

13. Tone-deaf crap

:thumbsdown:

[pitohui]

14. they over-warn as they usually do for the sake of safety

i don't see the big deal, it's easy to say the next morning that a hurricane ivan or a hurricane irene wasn't worth the angst, hindsight is 20/20, better to err on the side of extra caution and preparations

yes, i thought it would be at most a cat 2 (and it was less than that, mostly) but there is no harm done and much learned from taking the precautions and seeing how well the planning goes

if it turns out to be "this is just a test of the emergency broadcast system" all the better, you don't REALLY want a nuclear war or a cat 4...

and for that matter, as others say, everyone who got flooded or lost their home, they don't care if it's a "small" storm, losing your home or your life is still a big fucking deal!!!

[DCKit]

17. Forget that line of thinking.

Nobody knows what a hurricane is going to do. It could have intensified to Cat 4 by the time it hit NY.

Hurricanes do pretty much whatever they want to do. We were just lucky this time.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. Hurricanes don't 'want' anything.

as they are not sentient.


There are conditions that can cause a hurricane to intesify, and the forecasting center is usually pretty good about spotting those conditions. There was little chance of that.
These days, it's safer to over-warn to a degree, than to under-warn and suffer the consequences.

Just important not to over-warn too much, for 'next time'.

I get the feeling the people in Virginia and the Carolinas aren't feeling they were 'over-warned'. Especially the dead ones.


Stay classy, New York.

[DCKit]

28. Thanks for the lecture, Professor. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

39. You're welcome.

[Fuddnik]

26. I agree. They're totally unpredictable.

You can make some general assumptions, but there's too many variables involved fro 100% accuracy.

I used to track them in 1969-'71 at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk. Every four hours, we'd get a teletype message and I'd plot it on a chart.

Fast forward to 2004. Hurricane Charley was forcast to plow right up my driveway as a Cat 2, in about 5 hours. Me and the wife made emergency preparations by going to the golf course and indulging in bloody mary's for our last day on earth.

Two hours later, it made a hard right turn at Port Charlotte as a Cat5, and destroyed the region. People who had evacuated the Tampa Bay area and went to Orlando got blasted there a couple of hours later.

[Odin2005]

36. Uh, no. the water that far north is too cold to susutain a minimal hurricane, let alone a Cat4.

[harun]

18. What crap.

[DRoseDARs]

19. "Also-ran" really sticks in your craw, doesn't it? And not in the happy dog+peanutbutter way.

Elitists in New York City? Nah, what a silly trope...

[No Elephants]

31. Article says when it hit NYC, it was an also ran. Article is also clear it was a stronger storm

before it hit NYC.

[Bette Noir]

20. Just because NYC got off easy doesn't mean it wasn't a big storm.

The category rankings are about wind. This storm was about water. The people whose roads are flooded and houses washed away aren't in any less trouble because it was a tropical storm and not a hurricane that dropped several inches of rain in a few hours.

[rocktivity]

22. DING DING DING! Bette Noir, you're our grand prize winner!

The people whose roads are flooded and houses washed away aren't in any less trouble because it was a tropical storm and not a hurricane...

This "Irene was overhyped" crap is absolutely freaking ridiculous! Nobody died in New York City -- therefore the preparation was a failure and they're complaining?

:crazy:
rocktivity

[McCamy Taylor]

21. NY Times cares only about NY, I see.

[Mr Deltoid]

24. It's as if they are mourning because not enough damage happened

Sick I tell ya...

[Celefin]

27. What a disappointment. Really.

Wouldn't it have been just.. mm... SWELL if all of low lying NY had been wiped out.
We didn't even get to have an American Fukushima. The Japanese always get all the fun stuff, while we, the starved media in NY, have to contend ourself with a couple million blackouts, a mere 20+ death and a ridiculous 2+ billion in damages... really. No fair. AND I STILL GOT SOAKED!

Hey I know, there might be SOMETHING good in this sorry, overinflated rainstorm... we'll get to call for funding cuts for those experts.
They're only in it for the money, anyway! And Irene proves that they can't even predict what a Hurricane is going to be like. We DON'T NEED THEM.
While we're at, let's close down NOAA.

--------
*facepalm*

[No Elephants]

32. Do people not bother to read the OP article, or is reading comprehension the issue?

Or are people just so anxious to hate on NY?

This is a NY paper talking about the effect in NY of a hurricane, NY, where mandatory evacuations had occurred prior to a hurricane for the fist time in memopry. The article is very clear that the storm was very dangerous and did a lot of damage, but was much weaker than anticipated when it hit NYC.

All of which is absolutely true.

[Celefin]

33. I stand corrected

You are, of course, right, when referring to the OP article. Which I hadn't read.
That's the problem when only reading the first paragraphs and then expecting the article to be like others where the criticism would be warranted. One should know better than to jump to conclusions from a few sentences... but the overall tenor in the media is one of disappointment. Although not in the article that got bashed for it. Funny, actually.

[dipsydoodle]

34. That happens

on most occasions where the subject is a UK issue. It wears some of us here out. Its a simple fact of life that our laws here don't match those of the US.

off topic : what is the significance of an illegal act in the US being classed as a Federal offense ?

[Javaman]

35. Very simple rule of thumb...

Having been born and raised in Long Island and have lived through my share of hurricanes, we had a very simple rule of thumb regarding the strength of any hurricane. It goes like this: If the hurricane skirts the outer banks of Cape Hatteras, it will maintain it's strength. If it's makes landfall in NC more than likely it will be greatly degraded.

Since I have family in NYC, I watched this one closely.

When I saw that it made landfall in NC as a Cat 2, I told my GF, it will be tropical storm by the time it hits NYC.

I was right.

Now, storm surge is something else entirely.

I was checking the tide tables and the phase of the moon.

both told me that there would be extensive flooding.

Guess what? I was right.

If you live in a place long enough and you pay attention to what is going on, you would be surprised at the kind of experience, knowledge and wisdom you can pick up.

If they hurricane had hit, god forbid, NC at a cat 3 or higher, then things would have been a lot worse in NYC.

Just about always, when a hurricane makes landfall in NC, it quickly downgrades at least two categories before it hits NYC.

Also, if this has been a week from now, the hurricane would have picked up that much more energy from the warmer water after passing the cape.

Granted, hurricanes are unpredictable, but given the set of circumstances with this one, all arrows pointed to the current outcome.

I'm deeply saddened at the loss of life, but it also could have been a hell of a lot worse.

[Odin2005]

37. What a dumb article. We were just lucky Irene Weakened BEFORE landfall.

When she got near North Carolina she had an eye-wall replacement cycle and got a bit ruffled by dry air and was not able to rebuild her eye-wall before she made landfall.

And in any case hurricanes that are grazing the coast usually weaken from land interaction and cooler waters.

And Irene has caused huge amounts of flooding in the northeast. As usual, folks in NYC think other people don't matter.

[xxqqqzme]

40. This is not a

responsible piece It is reporting like this that causes people, when the next storm threatens, to ignore warnings, refuse to evacuate or take reasonable precautions.