Very unofficial- Texas season over?

[Praxus]

LOL best thread evar!

Seriously posting something like this in mid-august is pretty...ill advised.

SEASON CANCEL

[Ed Mahmoud]

LOL best thread evar!

Seriously posting something like this in mid-august is pretty...ill advised.

SEASON CANCEL

Well, usually over a week of Westerlies w/ multiple cold front passages and model predicted 2 more weeks of Westerlies, mean someplace on Western side of the basin should be fairly safe. Just unlucky, really. Like betting on Mike Tyson to knock out Buster Douglas. Like saying the Pats are better than the Giants. Like saying Michigan beats Appy State most of the time.


Anyway, now that my wife finally took the kids, it is like I'm camping at home, cooking steaks over a BBQ in the front, and living by flashlight.

Pretty sure the roof shingles all over my lawn aren't mine, and unlike many neighbors, I didn't lose my fence or trees.


I will say, that was some very loud wind. And my tree was whipping. I don't know how it survived. Never seen wind like that before.

[MiamiensisWx]

Personally, I've always harbored a jaundiced view of these threads. No offense is intended for Ed; I'm not "singling out" this specific thread, but I'm broadly alluding to ridiculous, definite "we'll make it and nothing will occur in location x" (based on fallacies, one meteorologist's views, etc.) topics prior to each season's conclusion. This thread does fit the aforementioned classification. My first thought (when I noted this thread) was identical to my views of the typical "we're doomed/overdue" threads, and it said, "This is idiocy." Your analyses are decent, Ed, so it was disappointing when you succumbed to this approach. I have a much higher opinion of you.

Regardless, I'm glad that you were unscathed during Ike. Hopefully, others will recover as well.

[DanKellFla]

Ed, good to hear from you. Glad that you are OK.
I don't know about everybody else, but I took this thread as very tounge in cheek durring a lull. At least we got some humor out of it durring a stressful time.

[Sanibel]

Those signs of early fall could have been the signs of a synoptic favorable for Texas instead of unfavorable.

[Derek Ortt]

If you make ridiculous predictions, no matter what for, expect to hear about it when you're wrong.

Category 5,

On Friday a few of us were saying that the surge might not be as high as many were fearing, so, I'd have to disagree with you...

I don't take the credit for thinking that it might be less, but, in my heart that's the feeling I kept getting, since the storm was moving fairly slowly at a consistent rate, and, was just not as strong as Katrina or Rita, since Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane just 6 hours before landfall...

But, a number here jumped all over us on Friday afternoon, saying we were, as you said, ridiculous for saying this, but, per TWC this morning, the highest any gauge measured was 12.75 feet - much less than many here who were saying it'd be as high as 22, 25 or even as high as 30 feet...

I'll have to ask my old co-worker, Brian Jarvinen, who worked on the SLOSH model, what his opinion is when it came to the surge forecast errors, and, I'll let all know here, but, one reason I mentioned that on Friday was my recollection of him saying that surge is very dependent on forward speed and intensity (central pressure), and, not just the angle of the storm's approach to the coast, and, the geography of the coast itself - since both forward speed and intensity were reduced in Ike's case, it makes sense that the surge would be less, which is just as well considering the amount of damage even in it's reduced state...

Also it's important to note that the highest winds over a large portion of Ike's Gulf passage were found not to be at the surface but aloft, and, no doubt that also helped to lessen the chance of a massive surge - as the below article mentions, surge is still very hard to accurately predict:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/09/1 ... index.html

though you can bet the prayers of millions did help, since many were very worried that the damage would be even worse that it is today...

Just because someone has a different opinion doesn't make their opinion ridiculous - only different, my friend...

Frank

Except it appears the surge did peak between 20-25 feet. Was a little less at Port Arthur than expected, but was higher than Rita in Louisiana

[Frank2]

Derek,

That's interesting and confusing at the same time, since it was mentioned on Saturday that the HRD and USGS models showed no more than 13.5 feet at any given location...

Still, models or no, it's very possible that the actual heights were as high as you mentioned, considering the damage - what a mess...

I really think the state governments need to make some hard decisions and not allow any other rebuilding in flood-prone areas, since much of the recovery work done in Louisiana after Katrina has now been destroyed...

[Sanibel]

I really think the state governments need to make some hard decisions and not allow any other rebuilding in flood-prone areas

Or perhaps allow only bomb-proof hurricane code reconstruction.

[Frank2]

Cost-wise it'd probably be impractical, though I agree that some of the cheap methods of building leave a lot to be desired...

Still, even a brick building would be a mess after a high storm surge, so, that's something that only banning any building in the area can solve - leave them as natural barriers against surge, not the constructed targets that we've allowed them to become...

[Cyclenall]

Derek,

That's interesting and confusing at the same time, since it was mentioned on Saturday that the HRD and USGS models showed no more than 13.5 feet at any given location...

I'd take new information over old information.

[Category 5]

Cost-wise it'd probably be impractical, though I agree that some of the cheap methods of building leave a lot to be desired...

Still, even a brick building would be a mess after a high storm surge, so, that's something that only banning any building in the area can solve - leave them as natural barriers against surge, not the constructed targets that we've allowed them to become...

Two words

Dome Home.

[ROCK]

All I can say to ED is.........



WHERE IS MY SHINER??


glad you came out ok....I am good however Pearland is 70% without power....not good...


Do us a favor going forward Ed...NEVER NEVER start a thread like this next year.....

[njweather]

I think Ed owes many people here many things...

BUT, seeing as he was affected by Ike, and is therefore a storm victim, all debts should be forgiven!

[Ivanhater]

Cost-wise it'd probably be impractical, though I agree that some of the cheap methods of building leave a lot to be desired...

Still, even a brick building would be a mess after a high storm surge, so, that's something that only banning any building in the area can solve - leave them as natural barriers against surge, not the constructed targets that we've allowed them to become...

Two words

Dome Home.

One of the few that survived Hurricane Ivan on Pensacola Beach..

[Texas Snowman]

As far as storm surge, I received this e-mail yesterday from SE Texas about a place that we stayed at last autumn at Crystal Beach (Renovare) along with a brick home/hunting lodge (that was not on the Gulf itself, was north of High Island as I recall).

Not only is the fancy bay house “Renovare” gone but so is “The Farm” south of Winnie. You remember the house with the big oak trees around it, well the oak trees survived but there is only a chimney left where the house was and the barn only has a slab to show for its existence. They estimate from the debris in the trees that the storm surge was close to 20’.

Since the hunting lodge was brick and pretty well built, I doubt that Ike's winds alone blew it down and left the barn slab clean - sounds like a big storm surge to me.

[Rod Hagen]

You've joined a famous club, Ed! :

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft."
-- IBM, 1982

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Texas season over?"
-- Ed Mahmoud, August 2008 before Hurricane Ike caused still unmeasured destruction in Galveston, the Bolivar Peninsular and Houston,in September, 2008 .

Cheers

Rod

[Ed Mahmoud]

It was a fluke...

[DanKellFla]

It was a fluke...

[jinftl]

Now I remember where the idea that the season was winding down for texas was planted in my head!

Except for any landfalling systems yet to happen, I agree - Texas season is done.

[HurricaneRobert]

Or maybe it isn't, like the year we had Allison, Chantal, and Jerry.

That dome of high pressure which sits over Texas (and causes unbearable heat sometimes) and normally scoots tropical cyclones on by isn't there.