Official Hurricane Irene Live OBS/Discussion Part III

[A-L-E-X]

Th is why lilco went down. There was so much anger and frustration over the slow response to Gloria. Woulda though lipa wouldve learned from their predecessor's mistakea.

I thought lilco went down because of the whole shoreham nuclear power plant thing?

[A-L-E-X]

Wonder why the 91 mph wind gust was reported in my town. Check this out.

000NOUS41 KOKX 292200 CCAPNSOKXCTZ005>012-NJZ002-004-006-103>108-NYZ067>075-078>081-176>179-310000-PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENTNATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY555 PM EDT MON AUG 29 2011...TWO WEAK EF0 TORNADOES AND A CONFIRMED MICROBURST...BASED ON DAMAGE REPORTS FROM NWS SURVEYS, SPOTTERS, MEDIA, EMERGENCYMANAGEMENT, AND RADAR DATA, IT APPEARS TWO WEAK TORNADOES TOUCHEDDOWN...ONE BRIEFLY IN QUEENS AND THE OTHER IN SUFFOLK COUNTY....EF0 IN QUEENS COUNTY...LOCATION...QUEENS...CUNNINGHAM PARKDATE...AUGUST 28, 2011ESTIMATED TIME...400 AM EDT TO 401 AM EDTMAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...EF0ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...85 MPHMAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...ONE EIGHTH OF A MILEPATH LENGTH...1 MILEBEGINNING LAT/LON...40.73N/73.76WENDING LAT/LON...40.74/73.77W*FATALITIES...0*INJURIES...0*THIS INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TOCHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENTS AND PUBLICATION IN NWSSTORM DATA.&&...EF0 IN SUFFOLK COUNTY...LOCATION...BABYLON/WEST ISLIP AREA TO WYANDANCH/DEER PARK AREADATE...AUGUST 28, 2011ESTIMATED TIME...450 AM EDT TO 454 AM EDTMAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...EF0ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...75 MPHMAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...ONE EIGHTH OF A MILEPATH LENGTH...4 MI WITH INTERMITTENT TOUCHDOWNSBEGINNING LAT/LON...40.70N/73.32WENDING LAT/LON...40.75N/73.35*FATALITIES...0*INJURIES...0*THIS INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TOCHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENTS AND PUBLICATION IN NWSSTORM DATA.&&...INTENSE MICROBURST SUFFOLK COUNTY...LOCATION...OAKDALE TO SAYVILLEDATE...AUGUST 28, 2011ESTIMATED TIME...430 AM EDTESTIMATED WIND GUST...90 MPHMAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...1/2 OF A MILEPATH LENGTH...2 MILESBEGINNING LAT/LON...40.73N/73.14WENDING LAT/LON...40.75N/73.09W*FATALITIES...0*INJURIES...0*THIS INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TOCHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENTS AND PUBLICATION IN NWSSTORM DATA.&&...SUMMARY...OUTER CONVECTIVE BANDS MOVED ACROSS LONG ISLAND AND SOUTHEAST NEWYORK AHEAD OF HURRICANE IRENE. EMBEDDED WITHIN SOME OF THESE BANDSWERE TORNADO PRODUCING STORMS. RADAR INDICATED HOOK ECHOES ANDROTATION WITH THESE STORMS WHICH ONLY LASTED BRIEFLY. THE STORMSWERE STRONGEST OVER THE OCEAN AND QUICKLY WEAKENED AS THEY MOVEDONSHORE. SEVERAL REPORTS OF WEAK TORNADOES AND DAMAGE WERE RECEIVEDFROM THE FRESH MEADOWS/CUNNINGHAM PARK AREAS AS WELL AS THE BABYLONAREA. AN INTENSE MICROBURST ALSO MOVED ONSHORE WITH A SHORTCONVECTIVE BAND ALONG THE SOUTH CENTRAL LONG ISLAND SHORE FROMOAKDALE TO SAYVILLE SHEARING TOPS OFF OF TREES AND ALSO TAKING MANYTREES AND POWERLINES DOWN.$

This is hard to read with everything bunched up like that

What I got from it is we had an EF0 tornado with winds up to 75 mph and a microburst with winds up to 90 mph. Queens also had an EF0 tornado with winds up to 85mph.

[A-L-E-X]

Here's some better formatting.....

EF0 Tornado Suffolk..... winds 75 mph path width 1/8th mile path length 4 miles

EF0 Tornado Queens.... winds 85 mph path width 1/8th mile path length 1 mile

Microburst Suffolk..... winds 90 mph path width 1/2 mile path length 2 miles

[NJwinter23]

Yeah NJwinter that damage definitely looks like 60mph or greater gusts. Ray - My sensor is 11' AGL which I know isn't the normal meteorological height (33'). But how much would wind speed be reduced given the sensor is in a pretty open area? I'd think maybe 3-5mph at best. As you noted there certainly were a lot of convective induced stronger gusts within the storm, which could have easily added 10mph locally.The lesser damage in my local area seems to confirm the lower gusts.

Sounds like you guys got really damn lucky for being located in se Monmouth County with this one. To further hit that point, I see 300 customers in Colts Neck still without power as of 9PM tonight, we have over 10 times that without power in Holmdel still (luckily I am no longer one of them). Marlboro/Matawan/Middletown are still over 5,000 and 6,000 without power (Granted Middletown is huge). A lot of the trees ive seen down have been standing tall for as long as I've been alive here at least, really wouldnt be surpsied if a gust topped 70 in my neighborhood.

[Dsnowx53]

I'm not sure how accurate those things are That said, JFK recording a peak gust of only 59 mph is highly suspect. They are among the windiest locations in the area on southerly or southeasterly winds and NYC and LGA should not have out gusted them.

Yeah, I'm almost positive that I gusted to at least 65 during my video. I honestly thought I hit hurricane force at the end of the video. The winds felt almost as strong, if not just as strong as in March of 2010, and I wasn't even on the beach. But perhaps there was some mini wind channeling/tunneling going on between Peter's Clam Bar and another building? Though the parking lot isn't really that narrow, so I'm not sure. I need to watch it again.

I kind of wish the official OBS supported my estimations from Island Park...but perhaps I really did get "bullseyed" when I was there.

[A-L-E-X]

Yeah, I'm almost positive that I gusted to at least 65 during my video. I honestly thought I hit hurricane force at the end of the video. The winds felt almost as strong, if not just as strong as in March of 2010, and I wasn't even on the beach. But perhaps there was some mini wind channeling/tunneling going on between Peter's Clam Bar and another building? Though the parking lot isn't really that narrow, so I'm not sure. I need to watch it again.

I kind of wish the official OBS supported my estimations from Island Park...but perhaps I really did get "bullseyed" when I was there.

Guess what Doug? There is now a PWS in Island Park on wunderground! The weird thing is, today is the first day I've ever seen it lol.... it wasn't there before. Let's see if they have any wind data we can pull up

[A-L-E-X]

http://classic.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KNYISLAN2&month=8&day=28&year=2011

Nvmd, only 2 obs from yesterday!

I scanned our local PWS and the one with the highest wind gust is mine- 46 mph (which is likely too low because I had 43 mph sustained lol) Site placement must be an issue for everyone!

[Dsnowx53]

http://classic.wunde...ay=28&year=2011

Nvmd, only 2 obs from yesterday!

I scanned our local PWS and the one with the highest wind gust is mine- 46 mph (which is likely too low because I had 43 mph sustained lol) Site placement must be an issue for everyone!

I guess the winds broke the sensor?

[uofmiami]

My station in Muttontown, before the cable lines got taken out somewhere & killing the internet, had uploaded an ob with a gust to 51MPH to CWOP (station ID CW0028). I didn't look at the data last night when I swung by my parent's house to check on them. Will do that sometime this week, as I am curious to see how high the winds got since the anemometer is on top of a 30 foot roof and 6 feet above the roof on tripod.

[A-L-E-X]

My station in Muttontown, before the cable lines got taken out somewhere & killing the internet, had uploaded an ob with a gust to 51MPH to CWOP (station ID CW0028). I didn't look at the data last night when I swung by my parent's house to check on them. Will do that sometime this week, as I am curious to see how high the winds got since the anemometer is on top of a 30 foot roof and 6 feet above the roof on tripod.

I know you have yours set up right You also have the best radiational cooling spot in Nassau County!

[A-L-E-X]

I guess the winds broke the sensor?

It probably only worked when the winds were weakest-- it died again in the afternoon on the backside of the storm lol.

[Isotherm]

Sounds like you guys got really damn lucky for being located in se Monmouth County with this one. To further hit that point, I see 300 customers in Colts Neck still without power as of 9PM tonight, we have over 10 times that without power in Holmdel still (luckily I am no longer one of them). Marlboro/Matawan/Middletown are still over 5,000 and 6,000 without power (Granted Middletown is huge). A lot of the trees ive seen down have been standing tall for as long as I've been alive here at least, really wouldnt be surpsied if a gust topped 70 in my neighborhood.

My area isn't really SE Monmouth, pretty much as centrally located as you can get in Monmouth (close to the rt 34/537 intersection.). Good point about power outages, and I think that has less to do with us being lucky and more concerning the lower tree density in our township. Marlboro, Matawan, and especially Holmdel and Middletown are loaded with tall trees. Colts Neck has high tree density in portions of the township, notably in the NE and NW corners, and those were probably the areas which lost power. That was probably the key; my local neighborhood has very few large trees in it whereas some neighborhoods I've seen in NE Colts Neck are essentially built in the woods.

Either way, IMO we're headed back toward the time of the 50s/60s with a -PDO and +AMO signal. Much of our hurricane activity occurrec then, especially with increased frequency by the latter part of the +AMO phase: 1954-1964. Irene is probably just the beginning of a more active tropical regime for the Northeast US.

[RutgersWx92]

Finally able to make my concluding post about Irene; my power at home has been out since Sunday afternoon and they said it might not be back until September 4. Thankfully I'm moved into Rutgers now.

Anyway, I was very happy with how this storm turned out. Ended up with 7.1 inches of rain, which produced the worst flooding I ever remember seeing since I moved to my current house 10 years ago. The road right by my house was completely covered in deep water (to the top of someone's mailbox to give a perspective), which flooded several homes and caused someone to have to get rescued from the floodwaters after they tried driving through them (which you could see in my first picture in the picture thread). The bridge close to where I live that goes over the Raritan River was also completely underwater up to the railing, which I've never seen before. I also posted a pic of that in the picture thread. The river also got so high that it started spilling into the canal which it runs parallel with. It even flooded Route 202 by my house and forced a closure of the highway, which I've never seen before. The iHop there got flooded by the river too. Two parks by my house were also completely underwater. Even getting to Rutgers yesterday was a challenge; Route 18 was completely underwater on Sunday as well as sections of Easton Avenue, which were still closed yesterday. I heard parts of Manville got flooded very badly, and apparently Patriots Stadium in Bridgewater even went partly underwater. Quite a bit of impressive flooding in this area, to say the least! Definitely the worst since Floyd.

Wind damage was also pretty impressive here, although certainly not as bad as it could've been and not the 40-60 mph sustained and 75 mph gusts that the NWS predicted. There were still several large trees down that I saw, as well as number of large branches. The gusts when I was outside got very strong for a couple periods of time, they were probably the strongest winds I ever remember witnessing. Got legit scared a few times when I was outside since I thought trees might fall, they were really leaning over and I heard a few loud cracks. Blown transformers were also lighting the sky all over the place while this was happening.

Irene was quite a storm around here and definitely one that won't be soon forgotten. Still, though, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been if it had been a Cat 2 up here like they were originally fearing. Considering how much our area was impacted by just a very minimal hurricane/TS, I can't imagine what a Cat 2 could do.

[CAT5ANDREW]

I cant believe I was stopped at a red light and was in the path of a 85MPH EF0 tornado in Fresh Meadows the other night.In less than 12 months,I have experienced a 125MPH Macroburst,a raging blizzard and now a tornado.Gee whiz,I am having a better year than the majority of stormchasers.

[SnowGoose69]

I thought lilco went down because of the whole shoreham nuclear power plant thing?

They were more or less hated though after Gloria, even though it took years for them to ultimately get bought out after that. I think LILCO did all they could following Gloria, considering how amazingly bad that damage was the fact they had everyone back in 11 days was pretty good. LIPA may take 11 days to get everyone back from this which while it only had 250,000 less outages than Gloria the degree of damage to stations and utility poles was less. They still have not even put assessments up for most towns. My family has long left their house and checked into a hotel, given only 110 houses remain out in their town they believe they may not be restored til Sunday or Monday next week.

[FPizz]

Patriots stadium had more than 5' of water on the field. I saw a pic of the inside flooded.

[Stormlover74]

Irene was similar to Floyd as far as flooding goes though seemed to be worse in the Trenton/Mercer area and up in Bergen/Passaic. However Floyd did not have the winds and there was little to no wind damage unilke with Irene. I am one of the "lucky" ones to still have power since a tree snapped around midnight Saturday night. PSE&G says 600K out of 680K are restored so i'm one of the last ones it seems. We did have quite a few very impressive 60 mph+ gusts that took down a lot of seemingly healthy trees. As of this morning none had even been touched. So it's going to be a while before they can get the poles and wires back up and power restored when the trees that caused them to fall are still down. I wonder how much of it was because of the saturated grounds and previous rainfall. In other words could we have withstood stronger, even hurricane force winds better had we had a very dry month and only got 3 to 4" of rain.

Finally able to make my concluding post about Irene; my power at home has been out since Sunday afternoon and they said it might not be back until September 4. Thankfully I'm moved into Rutgers now.

Anyway, I was very happy with how this storm turned out. Ended up with 7.1 inches of rain, which produced the worst flooding I ever remember seeing since I moved to my current house 10 years ago. The road right by my house was completely covered in deep water (to the top of someone's mailbox to give a perspective), which flooded several homes and caused someone to have to get rescued from the floodwaters after they tried driving through them (which you could see in my first picture in the picture thread). The bridge close to where I live that goes over the Raritan River was also completely underwater up to the railing, which I've never seen before. I also posted a pic of that in the picture thread. The river also got so high that it started spilling into the canal which it runs parallel with. It even flooded Route 202 by my house and forced a closure of the highway, which I've never seen before. The iHop there got flooded by the river too. Two parks by my house were also completely underwater. Even getting to Rutgers yesterday was a challenge; Route 18 was completely underwater on Sunday as well as sections of Easton Avenue, which were still closed yesterday. I heard parts of Manville got flooded very badly, and apparently Patriots Stadium in Bridgewater even went partly underwater. Quite a bit of impressive flooding in this area, to say the least! Definitely the worst since Floyd.

Wind damage was also pretty impressive here, although certainly not as bad as it could've been and not the 40-60 mph sustained and 75 mph gusts that the NWS predicted. There were still several large trees down that I saw, as well as number of large branches. The gusts when I was outside got very strong for a couple periods of time, they were probably the strongest winds I ever remember witnessing. Got legit scared a few times when I was outside since I thought trees might fall, they were really leaning over and I heard a few loud cracks. Blown transformers were also lighting the sky all over the place while this was happening.

Irene was quite a storm around here and definitely one that won't be soon forgotten. Still, though, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been if it had been a Cat 2 up here like they were originally fearing. Considering how much our area was impacted by just a very minimal hurricane/TS, I can't imagine what a Cat 2 could do.

[bmc10]

Does anyone know if there is any information about a microburst/weak tornado in Franklin Lakes, Bergen County, NJ. About a mile long path that cuts through my house with moderate damage. Lot's of trees down including some structural damage to homes. Sorry if this was posted already, I have been busy with the fire department the last several days and unable to monitor the forums like usual. I can report from being out that Oakland NJ had devastating flooding on the Ramapo River. Approx 10 homes condemned and many residents rescued from their homes. Several areas of Oakland, Pompton Lakes and Wayne NJ were completely flooded by rising river waters and experienced the same conditions. Some homes exploded, bridges were destroyed, and one fatality in Wanaque. I know some of this information is probably redundant, my apologies. Thanks for the help guys! Hope everyone is safe and with power. I will be posting a video of the damage on my property and a video of some flooding I was able to record on my facebook later, feel free to add me as a friend.

[Stormlover74]

I don't but there definitely seem to be harder hit areas than others, sometimes even less than a mile away. Plainfield and Rahway were particularly hard hit with tree/wind damage and I know I had close to if not over a hurricane force gust even though nothing was confirmed. Traveling around Union County the past few days there were definitely other areas that I saw with little to no tree damage and very few power problems.

Does anyone know if there is any information about a microburst/weak tornado in Franklin Lakes, Bergen County, NJ. About a mile long path that cuts through my house with moderate damage. Lot's of trees down including some structural damage to homes. Sorry if this was posted already, I have been busy with the fire department the last several days and unable to monitor the forums like usual. I can report from being out that Oakland NJ had devastating flooding on the Ramapo River. Approx 10 homes condemned and many residents rescued from their homes. Several areas of Oakland, Pompton Lakes and Wayne NJ were completely flooded by rising river waters and experienced the same conditions. Some homes exploded, bridges were destroyed, and one fatality in Wanaque. I know some of this information is probably redundant, my apologies. Thanks for the help guys! Hope everyone is safe and with power. I will be posting a video of the damage on my property and a video of some flooding I was able to record on my facebook later, feel free to add me as a friend.

[BlueSkiesFading]

Just finshed the clean-up after getting 7ft of Passaic River water in my basement. Recorded 7.36" of rain. The flooding here was slightly worse than Floyd. Me and several of my neighbors had to be evacuated by boat after the street filled with several feet of water in less than an hour. We were told by PSE&G that my street and several others in town will be without gas for at least 2 weeks as water got into the gas lines in an unprecidented manner. Taking an ice cold shower at 6am while it was 59 degress out was not fun. I know several families personally that lost their entire homes. I feel for the people in other towns such as Wayne and Little Falls who have gotten it even worse and seem to go through this every time there's a heavy rainstorm. Let's hope for a dry fall so we dry out, and then get back into a wet pattern in winter so we can track some snowstorms.

[gpickett]

They were more or less hated though after Gloria, even though it took years for them to ultimately get bought out after that. I think LILCO did all they could following Gloria, considering how amazingly bad that damage was the fact they had everyone back in 11 days was pretty good. LIPA may take 11 days to get everyone back from this which while it only had 250,000 less outages than Gloria the degree of damage to stations and utility poles was less. They still have not even put assessments up for most towns. My family has long left their house and checked into a hotel, given only 110 houses remain out in their town they believe they may not be restored til Sunday or Monday next week.

What "killed" Lilco was that it won the Shoreham tax case and was owed billions by the state under the 1989 Shoreham settlement and the local politicians had no intention of stopping the gravy train of subsized schools and local government that Lilco provided. So they resurrected LIPA as a way to control the continued payments to local governments. That happened in 1998, many years after the Gloria debacle. Lilco still exists by the way. It is owned by LIPA.

[MJO812]

Awesome video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl9zJYms1X8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Manny]

Wow Irene did plenty of damage here in New Paltz. WiFi on my campus went down for three days, so I couldnt even post or anything. Goodness.

[CAT5ANDREW]

Howard beach in Queens had flooding worse than the Dec 1992 noreaster.Belle harbor and neponsit had the ocean surge over onto and flood the streets.

[NorEaster27]

Howard beach in Queens had flooding worse than the Dec 1992 noreaster.Belle harbor and neponsit had the ocean surge over onto and flood the streets.

Parts of souther queens did, others did not. My house in Broad Channel had much worse flooding in DEC 92 while parts of old howard beach had worse flooding in this storm. Overall I would say it was the worst coatsal flooding since DEC 92. Dec 92 had more severe flooding over multiple tide cycles, with this storm we only had flooding for about 2 hours.

[CAT5ANDREW]

Parts of souther queens did, others did not.  My house in Broad Channel had much worse flooding in DEC 92 while parts of old howard beach had worse flooding in this storm.  Overall I would say it was the worst coatsal flooding since DEC 92.  Dec 92 had more severe flooding over multiple tide cycles, with this storm we only had flooding for about 2 hours.

Hurricane Donna in 1960 had the worst flooding.Water completly covered Belle Harbor from end to end.

The big difference was the waves.Dec 1992 had waves over 20 feet high crashing down close to shore at the high tides.I was at Riss Park on that morning and the waves crashed over the boardwalk and came ono the road and evntually the parking lot.This time around it was not nearly as bad.Irene was mainly surge with the biggest waves coming after high tide.

[NorEaster27]

Hurricane Donna in 1960 had the worst flooding.Water completly covered Belle Harbor from end to end.

The big difference was the waves.Dec 1992 had waves over 20 feet high crashing down close to shore at the high tides.I was at Riss Park on that morning and the waves crashed over the boardwalk and came ono the road and evntually the parking lot.This time around it was not nearly as bad.Irene was mainly surge with the biggest waves coming after high tide.

Did you see the youtube videos of the flooding in breezy point during Dec 92? Some videos are also on youtube of the flooding down xbay from Irene.

[A-L-E-X]

Parts of souther queens did, others did not. My house in Broad Channel had much worse flooding in DEC 92 while parts of old howard beach had worse flooding in this storm. Overall I would say it was the worst coatsal flooding since DEC 92. Dec 92 had more severe flooding over multiple tide cycles, with this storm we only had flooding for about 2 hours.

This is why a big stalling noreaster will always be worse for us than a hurricane-- no matter how intense.

[MJO812]

Legacy of Irene

http://www.tradeonly...enes-statistics