Frances Is Dying A Slow Death

[~SirCane]

I predict at landfall-Frances will be 120mph and the eye will reform.........

[wlfpack81]

The 11 pm update will indicate a further weakening of Frances to about 95 mph - just keeps getting weaker & weaker. It's strangling itself with a mere 4 mph forward motion - sitting on itself & rotating over it's own cooling wake. This one's history folks. Tropical storm for Florida only - and that's if the current track verifies now with very liitle forward motion. I think developing Ivan is more interesting now.

See hurricanes are MORE than just winds. Even if this thing comes in as a weak Cat 2 it's still going to dump 10-20 INCHES of rain in cent FL which is going to lead to massive flooding which is still going to cause a lot of damage. Just look at the pictures of Richmond, VA and see what Gaston did there. Granted Richmond has a lot of hills etc. and cent FL doesn't but 10-20in in a short period even over flat surfaces is going to cause drainage problems, building roof collapses possibly due to weight, flooding of transformer stations which can add to power outages, not to mention with a very wet ground 45-55mph winds are all that's needed to take down trees into homes.

[Lindaloo]

1998 Hurricane Georges (Category 4) Dumped 20 inces of rain in Mississippi and Alabama. Flooding caused most of Georges' 602 deaths


Not a CAT 4 when he made landfall in MS.

[wlfpack81]

Another thing people need to realize that while moving across FL even as the winds weakend the circulation will still be able to draw moisture of the GOM back into FL to help with the convection.

A decrease in winds/pressure DOESN'T equal a decrease in the tropical like rains this storm will produce. I hope others in FL aren't thinking like the originator of this thread or else I fear we're gonna hear a lot about urban flooding deaths over the next 3-4 days.

[ncbird]

Last year when Isabel died down to a Cat 2 before striking NC we sighed a relief. Only a cat 2 thank God. Well it woke up my hiney to what can be done by a cat 2 and Floridians are most likely going to experience extensive flooding which will make it so much worse. Please all don't let guard down. Keep Safe.

For those who don't know what a cat 2 storm can do check out the damage reports from Isabel (keeping in mind you will also be dealing with much more flooding)

http://www.hurricanecity.com/dam/dam2003.htm

and here are some pics of what little old cat 2 Isabel left behind

http://www.fema.gov/kids/hurr_isa.htm

NCBird

[simplykristi]

I know!!! I actually spent a few days in Boyton Beach in Nov. 1996. FL is VERY flat.

Kristi

[HurricaneBill]

1998 Hurricane Georges (Category 4) Dumped 20 inces of rain in Mississippi and Alabama. Flooding caused most of Georges' 602 deaths


Not a CAT 4 when he made landfall in MS.

I know. That was his peak intensity. Georges was a Cat 1 at landfall in MS.

[opera ghost]

I was in Allison- I laughed. We chilled out at a friends house as the winds howled overhead when she made landfall. I went to work the next day.

When she came back around for her second taste I watched my entire neighborhood all but wash away. People advertise on homes- 3 years later- Didn't flood in Allison. It's a selling point. And it was fast... and surprising.

A woman heard that it had started to flood and hopped in the elevator to grab somethign out of her car in an underground parking garage- she drowned when the elevator opened underwater.

Frances is big. She's hanging on and will have a shot at the gulf stream. I think it's foolish to blow off a tripical storm this large and slow moving- and especially foolish to ignore a hurricane- of any strength this big and slow moving.

[HurricaneBill]

Hurricane Bob was only a Category 2 when he struck New England in 1991. He had earlier peaked as a Cat 3. But anyway, Bob pretty much clipped New England and the worst damage was in SE Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Being in Western Mass and far from the center, we still got sustained winds around 50 mph with gusts around 70-80 mph. We also got 5 inches of rain. Lots of trees fell in the area.

Anyway, for a hurricane that had sustained winds of 100 mph and had its weaker quadrants over most of New England, Bob still packed a punch.

Bob left 18 dead and $1.5 billion in damage.

I'd hate to have seen what would have happened if Bob had made landfall on Long Island and plowed into New England.

[bahamaswx]

It's flooding... so she decided to take the elevator underground. Almost sounds worthy of a Darwin Award.

[opera ghost]

See- not so much bahamaswx. That was in the Med Center if I remember correctly- and in my 12 years in Houston- the Medical Center hasn't even had a threat of flooding other than Allison. It flows off to the Bayous and is considered generally a pretty darn safe place to be. It's one of the few places in Houston that actully *has* basement parking and basement buildings- designed that way.

It took everyone by surprise when the flooding took over the medical center- it was in the evening and I know the hospital my doctors work in didn't even have a TV relay available... there was no live feed of news and only the ocassional phone call in. Theres now a TV feed in on every level- sometimes a few... and we (who work outside the med center, but with the people in the hospitals) are sure to call and let them know what's going on. She probably got a phone call- it's flooding in the city, probably decided to get something out of her car to make a stay at the hospital more comfortable, and never expected that the entire lower levels of the medical center were like swimming pools.

Had it happened during the day- we would have lost a LOT more people. As it stood- the night staffer in the radiation oncology department had time to grab her purse and shut down her equipment before she had to make a mad dash away from the rising water. My doctors lost *everything* at the hospital. Everything.

A huge amount of the cost of Allison (lives and money) was that she flooded places that had never flooded before... and weren't supposed to flood.

[siobhan222]

Frances is big. She's hanging on and will have a shot at the gulf stream. I think it's foolish to blow off a tripical storm this large and slow moving- and especially foolish to ignore a hurricane- of any strength this big and slow moving.

Excellent advice. It's so easy to say oh well, it's only a category 2 now. And so easy to forget its size and that yes, it's still a hurricane!

Thank you for bringing us all back down to earth.

Siobhan in PBG

[bahamaswx]

See- not so much bahamaswx. That was in the Med Center if I remember correctly- and in my 12 years in Houston- the Medical Center hasn't even had a threat of flooding other than Allison. It flows off to the Bayous and is considered generally a pretty darn safe place to be. It's one of the few places in Houston that actully *has* basement parking and basement buildings- designed that way.

It took everyone by surprise when the flooding took over the medical center- it was in the evening and I know the hospital my doctors work in didn't even have a TV relay available... there was no live feed of news and only the ocassional phone call in. Theres now a TV feed in on every level- sometimes a few... and we (who work outside the med center, but with the people in the hospitals) are sure to call and let them know what's going on. She probably got a phone call- it's flooding in the city, probably decided to get something out of her car to make a stay at the hospital more comfortable, and never expected that the entire lower levels of the medical center were like swimming pools.

Had it happened during the day- we would have lost a LOT more people. As it stood- the night staffer in the radiation oncology department had time to grab her purse and shut down her equipment before she had to make a mad dash away from the rising water. My doctors lost *everything* at the hospital. Everything.

A huge amount of the cost of Allison (lives and money) was that she flooded places that had never flooded before... and weren't supposed to flood.

Most people are aware that: elevators + fire/flood/earthquake etc. = bad

[Houstonia]

... as someone who went through Allison, housebound for an entire week with 10 rats (albeit pet rats), I can say that the wind is not the worst thing...

[FritzPaul]

... as someone who went through Allison, housebound for an entire week with 10 rats (albeit pet rats), I can say that the wind is not the worst thing...

We about drowned here in N.O. and we're several hundred miles away.

[inotherwords]

I lived in HOuston for 10 years, lived on a Bayou and saw some incredible flooding there. It wasn't uncommon to see people jet-skiing on 59 after big storms. Not uncommon to have 10 inches of rain or more in a day, not uncommon to have people drown in cars stuck under overpasses. However I moved away before Allison, seeing the pics of that were incredible. Nothing matched that.

But the difference between TX and FL is that FL is mostly sand and pourous coral underneath and can drain pretty quickly. My Houston dirt was mostly clay and what they called "gumbo" soil and did not drain. Last summer here in southwest coastal FL we had 65 inches of rain in 6 weeks and while my septic system didn't work for 3 days at one stretch, and while we had a bit of standing water, we didn't have what anyone would consider to be deadly flooding. I've also seen 10 inches in little more than a day and 20 inches in 3 days and the story is the same. And I'm 300 feet from a creek and 1/2 mile as the crow flies from Venice inlet to the Gulf.

Our local mets are predicting only 5" of rain for this area. I know we can handle a lot more than that, and I think much of Florida can, too. The big problems in this area tend to be around the Myakka river, which floods in most tropical storms that happen around here (and flooded heavily last summer), but I can't say flooding is a widespread problem in the entire area. FL can handle a lot of water, we're designed for it.

Hey, at least it will help us from drought conditions for a while.

[ilmc172pilot]

wouldnt count her out yet

[Air Force Met]

The 11 pm update will indicate a further weakening of Frances to about 95 mph - just keeps getting weaker & weaker. It's strangling itself with a mere 4 mph forward motion - sitting on itself & rotating over it's own cooling wake. This one's history folks. Tropical storm for Florida only - and that's if the current track verifies now with very liitle forward motion. I think developing Ivan is more interesting now.

You really have no idea what you are talking about. It takes DAYS of sitting in the same place for upwelling to kill a storm...and that's when there's cold water to be upwelled.

THE BAHAMAS ARE SHALLOW AND 80F WATER GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM.

Where's this cool water coming from partner?

[Innotech]

her eye is peeking out in sat photos!
Frances is making a last ditch effort to wake up before landfall.

[clearwater]

But the difference between TX and FL is that FL is mostly sand and pourous coral underneath and can drain pretty quickly.

If it's not already completely saturated. We've had too much rain lately -- in many places the ground is solid mud right now. I was at my parent's house on Thursday (putting away potential lawn missiles) and in places, walking through their yard was like walking through 4-5 inches of thick pudding.