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Central PA - December 2017


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14 hours ago, canderson said:

Brother is fine, house is dry. Niece is totally fine and water never really pooled in her street either - her little brick ranch house will be worth like a billion dollars after this event. In laws house is probably a total goner. 

Last night my brother was a savior. They had a friend in their old neighborhood stuck on the 2nd floor with her two kids, water up to the ceiling of the first. He and a friend found a boat and went and rescued them, and in doing so rescued an elderly couple that didn't have a cell phone and never could tell anyone they needed help. She is an oxygen and was out, so literally they probably saved her life. 

That story can be repeated by hundreds of others too. Seeing the good in people in Texas brings me so much joy in such a catastrophic time for them all. 

I'm glad to hear everyone is safe in your family.  Its unprecedented the amount of people who are being rescued. Without  Ordinary citizens, like your brother stepping up, the death toll would be much, much higher.

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Certainly will have to keep an eye on Irma throughout the upcoming week as the potential certainly exists for impacts on the East Coast and in our region as well. 12z GFS and Euro op runs had direct PA impacts today, GFS taking the center more NW into Ohio while Euro is looking to take it over eastern PA outside its range. Obviously way too early to even speculate on any details regarding potential impacts but I think it's certainly prudent to note the potential is there. Given lead time and skill level with track forecasting, pretty much everything's in play from recurve to not being pulled up and ending up under Florida into the Gulf and everything in between. With that said, my thoughts on this at the moment are unfortunately that I think it's more likely this doesn't get pulled up and heads towards more of a Florida impact/Gulf positioning than a recurve solution that doesn't impact someone...with something in between certainly a pretty distinct possibility. Models indicate anomalously high heights to our north and lack of a notable approaching trough that generally turn these things away more often than not... so that concerns me. That's generally something you see in place to turn one inland from the east coast (ala a Fran,isabel, etc) vs a glance or recurve scenario. But all we can do is monitor the next few days as minor changes in upstream features in ensuing model runs could provide us with a completely different track scenario and/or a lack of run to run continuity with respect to the eventual track. 

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Ugh I gotta correct my previous post, I must have been looking at this mornings 0z Euro instead of the 12z one.. just realized today's 12z op run was out to sea and a much different look at 500mb with closed low over New England. But otherwise my thoughts on this storm in my previous post still stand.  

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1 hour ago, sauss06 said:

I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about this lil bit*h Irma. 

Me either, I'm not gonna rule out the turn out to sea scenario... but unfortunately it appears quite unlikely right now and I could say with reasonable confidence that the potential for Irma being a second consecutive major hurricane strike on the US is pretty darn high. When looking at the general model consensus there just isn't really much of any "good" scenario. If the hurricane eventually impacts Hispianola and Cuba per the further south Euro take on things, that would certainly weaken the hurricane and the high end impact potential on the US. Of course the tradeoff is the impact to those island countries and the probable major damage and death toll from flooding and other impacts and these areas are extremely vulnerable. Plus a US impact is still implied anyways and it would still be a formidable storm. A further north solution like the GFS will probably ensure Irma maintains it's very organized structure and stays a major hurricane and probably a cat 4 or greater all the way into the Bahamas to wherever it is when the progged turn north starts. Given the sharp turn north progged, I would think the influence of the trough will elongate the storm and increase shear some which would probably take the top off the insane winds in that scenario. Even so, if it ended up running east of Florida and hitting the Carolinas, I think it would still be a major hurricane that causes big issues... but perhaps not a 4 or greater.  If it gets directly to Florida before the turn happens, that's not going to be pretty. I personally don't buy the Euro solution of being so far south as to have Irma be directly affected by Cuba, but the GFS might be too far north and turning a bit too quick. Just lots of scenarios to sort out with this. You still can't really rule any one thing out yet. And it is certainly very much in play that this eventually affects our sensible weather in PA as well.

Really amazing to watch this storm and just how strong it has gotten. The northern islands (Barbuda, Virgin Islands, etc) are likely to get this hurricane at what ultimately could be it's peak intensity. The island of Barbuda will be taking a direct hit from the eyewall during the next couple hours. It will be interesting to see how much this hurricane maintains it's strength the next few days if it can stay away from major land influences. Maintaining Cat 5 or even Cat 4 for an extended period of time is hard to do, but this hurricane is very well organized and has been displaying annular characteristics. It will also be moving into ever warmer waters and a continued low shear environment. 

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5 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

Me either, I'm not gonna rule out the turn out to sea scenario... but unfortunately it appears quite unlikely right now and I could say with reasonable confidence that the potential for Irma being a second consecutive major hurricane strike on the US is pretty darn high. When looking at the general model consensus there just isn't really much of any "good" scenario. If the hurricane eventually impacts Hispianola and Cuba per the further south Euro take on things, that would certainly weaken the hurricane and the high end impact potential on the US. Of course the tradeoff is the impact to those island countries and the probable major damage and death toll from flooding and other impacts and these areas are extremely vulnerable. Plus a US impact is still implied anyways and it would still be a formidable storm. A further north solution like the GFS will probably ensure Irma maintains it's very organized structure and stays a major hurricane and probably a cat 4 or greater all the way into the Bahamas to wherever it is when the progged turn north starts. Given the sharp turn north progged, I would think the influence of the trough will elongate the storm and increase shear some which would probably take the top off the insane winds in that scenario. Even so, if it ended up running east of Florida and hitting the Carolinas, I think it would still be a major hurricane that causes big issues... but perhaps not a 4 or greater.  If it gets directly to Florida before the turn happens, that's not going to be pretty. I personally don't buy the Euro solution of being so far south as to have Irma be directly affected by Cuba, but the GFS might be too far north and turning a bit too quick. Just lots of scenarios to sort out with this. You still can't really rule any one thing out yet. And it is certainly very much in play that this eventually affects our sensible weather in PA as well.

Really amazing to watch this storm and just how strong it has gotten. The northern islands (Barbuda, Virgin Islands, etc) are likely to get this hurricane at what ultimately could be it's peak intensity. The island of Barbuda will be taking a direct hit from the eyewall during the next couple hours. It will be interesting to see how much this hurricane maintains it's strength the next few days if it can stay away from major land influences. Maintaining Cat 5 or even Cat 4 for an extended period of time is hard to do, but this hurricane is very well organized and has been displaying annular characteristics. It will also be moving into ever warmer waters and a continued low shear environment. 

Ever since Irene in '11, i pay closer attention to Hurricanes and where they make landfall. Agnes was the worst for our area, but Irene did more damage at my house due to the wind. 

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15 minutes ago, canderson said:

I had water coming in through my doorknobs and up/under window facia during Irene. She sucked.

We lost power early in the morning, probably around 530, it was restored around 4-5pm. That is unusual, as they always try and get it back on quick because of the firehouse. the original part of my house is almost 100 years old and during Irene the Window on the 3rd floor (which faces the East)  was blown out. So think about about how many storms that window went through :wacko: It also peeled the cap shingles off the new addition part. 

regardless, we did what my family does well, gathered at my garage, drank beer and moonshine and turned it into a party :rolleyes:

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Numerous road closures on my way to work this morning. Chickies Hill looks like a war zone. Fortunately there was no damage in my neighborhood. 

I was 6 when Agnes rolled through. I remember little other than being terrified by how loud the rain was.

Lee was the storm I'll remember solely for rainfall. I picked up over 15" back in 2011.

For me, all tropical storms will be measured against Isabel back in 2003. Hours of frightening wind and rain overnight. My kids, who were quite young at the time still talk about it to this day. It took me 90 minutes to make my typical 20 minute trip to work the next morning due to all the roads that were closed from trees and wires down. 

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29 minutes ago, maytownpawx said:

Numerous road closures on my way to work this morning. Chickies Hill looks like a war zone. Fortunately there was no damage in my neighborhood. 

I was 6 when Agnes rolled through. I remember little other than being terrified by how loud the rain was.

Lee was the storm I'll remember solely for rainfall. I picked up over 15" back in 2011.

For me, all tropical storms will be measured against Isabel back in 2003. Hours of frightening wind and rain overnight. My kids, who were quite young at the time still talk about it to this day. It took me 90 minutes to make my typical 20 minute trip to work the next morning due to all the roads that were closed from trees and wires down. 

Oh yeah, i forgot about Isabel. I didn't sleep that night. 

 

i was 9 during Agnes, all these years later, the sights are still vivid. 

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Reading these post about Lee and Isabel just made me realize how much I really do live in a sea of tranquility here in Tamaqua. Lee's firehose just missed us and we only got about 3 to 4 inches of rain with minimal impacts. Isabel was so un-noteworthy that I don't even remember what happened here, so it couldn't have been much...lol

And I'll add Sandy to the mix. Somehow, someway, while nearly EVERYONE around us lost power and had trees down and other wind damage, if you'd have driven through the Borough of Tamaqua the day after the storm, you'd have not even known that Sandy blew through. It was that benign...

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Man, I was talking at work about Isabella. I had just moved into a highrise apartment at 32nd and Market in philly - the old train company headquarters. 11th story apartment. Had my first day at my coop the next morning and the storm rolled in. Really wasnt that bad maybe 40+ mph winds but god *damn* they howled. Entire night, they just screamed through the windows, made them bang. Constant police and fire sirens dont think I got a lick of sleep. I dream sometimes about going through a bigger storm because as a weather weanie I want to but I look back at that night and how even through earplugs and a box fan sleeping on a mattress on the floor you couldnt block that sound out and yea...big hurricane? im out. the hell with that. Unless Im in a blue shed

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