ATL: IKE Discussion

[wxman57]

NHC never does dramatic shifts in the track with one advisory. Did the 5pm move at all?

Looks like a considerable north shift from earlier, nearly to Matagorda Bay but not quite.

[Houstonia]

I'm still seeing the 2pm track even when I refresh.

Question for you Houstonians...if you guys stay on the East side of Ike and take a significant storm surge...would downtown Houston look like New Orleans post Katrina or is Houston much more above sea leve?

Gee, I never really thought I'd see another Katrina type disaster play out in my lifetime and I pray that it doesn't but looking at everything right now, the way it is setting up, it really looks like a potential disaster in the making. I certainly apologize if I come off as sounding too "doomsdayish" but I truly am concerned for you folks up that way.

Houston's elevation is anywhere from 0ft to like... 80ft (I think - it may be more). New Orleans is actually BELOW sea level (hence the "bowl" analogy).

Some areas of Houston would definitely look like N.O. post-Katrina - do a Google image search under Houston and Allison, and you will see what can happen. But other parts will have short-term flooding that will recede quickly. Houston is so spread out that it really depends on what part of the city you're talking about. Southeast typically floods, northwest typically does not. I say "typically" because, of course, there's no guarantees, right?

[pablolopez26]

Question for you Houstonians...if you guys stay on the East side of Ike and take a significant storm surge...would downtown Houston look like New Orleans post Katrina or is Houston much more above sea leve?

The city of Houston is about 50 feet above sea level. With some points up to 90 ft. But much of Houston is also flat, thus making us very floodprone.

Can downtown Houston flood? Id say sure. But so can the Med Center amongst other crucial locations in Houston.

[KWT]

the thing about the track is the models are to the north of the landfall location of where the NHC has it but becuase of the way Texas curves small changes in track and speed makes a fair sized difference.

terrapintransit, yep Ike certainly does appear now to be a pretty large hurricane and should be growing steadily over the next few days or so...

Lanfall in about 84hrs time it seems looking at the models.

[chris_fit]

Is it just me or has Ike put on the brakes?

[N2Storms]

[quote="Ed Mahmoud"][quote="N2Storms"][quote="HouTXmetro"]I'm still seeing the 2pm track even when I refresh. [/quote]


Question for you Houstonians...if you guys stay on the East side of Ike and take a significant storm surge...would downtown Houston look like New Orleans post Katrina or is Houston much more above sea leve?

Gee, I never really thought I'd see another Katrina type disaster play out in my lifetime and I pray that it doesn't but looking at everything right now, the way it is setting up, it really looks like a potential disaster in the making. I certainly apologize if I come off as sounding too "doomsdayish" but I truly am concerned for you folks up that way.[/quote]


Pasadena would be in trouble.


Now, Buffalo Bayou flooded downtown Houston during Allison, but that was fresh water flooding. Of course, a lot of rain, plus the fact that Buffalo Bayou doesn't have a lot of gradient to Galveston Bay and might back up just a little in a worst case storm surge, and not allow fresh water to drain well, that could be an issue.

[img]http://beldar.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/evaczonescropped_2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/photo/allison2001/I45-Downtown.jpg[/img][/quote]


Thanks so much Ed...I appreciate it

[HenkL]

Highest FL winds so far (73 kt) were found some 100 miles NE of center.

[rtd2]

Is it just me or has Ike put on the brakes?

Said this earlier....

[Sjones]

NHC never does dramatic shifts in the track with one advisory. Did the 5pm move at all?

Looks like a considerable north shift from earlier, nearly to Matagorda Bay but not quite.

What are our chances of the models making a north easternly turn to the SeTx/SwLa Coast?

[HouTXmetro]

Umm...Downtown Houston did flood during Allison. Buffalo Bayou runs on the North end of downtown.

[LizzardInFlorida]

An note on flooding in Houston - if you live inner-city the flood threat is still great even in non-evac areas such as downtown, Mid-town, and the Heights, and all areas situated around any bayous.

I used to live in Houston before I moved to Fla., and after TS Allison my apt. complex (situated near downtown) was an island, due to bayous topping out. I never thought I'd see that.

Something to think about regarding inland flooding.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Question for you Houstonians...if you guys stay on the East side of Ike and take a significant storm surge...would downtown Houston look like New Orleans post Katrina or is Houston much more above sea leve?

The city of Houston is about 50 feet above sea level. With some points up to 90 ft. But much of Houston is also flat, thus making us very floodprone.

Can downtown Houston flood? Id say sure. But so can the Med Center amongst other crucial locations in Houston.

I-45 and downtown flooded because it is near where White Oak Bayou joins Buffalo Bayou, and the Med Center, IIRC, is near Brays Bayou.

I believe, after the loss of emergency generators in basement levels at all the med center hospitals, most of the Texas Medical Center's emergency generators are now raised above expected flood levels. I heard stories of nurses having to ventilate patients by hands. Scary for the patients, and no fun for the nurses.

[KWT]

tolakram, yep the first signs but I don't think this system will really start to look much better on IR until another 6-12hrs time once Ike is fully away from land, right now its inflow still must be majorly affected by Cuba?

[Tireman4]

For those who live inland:


http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutmeow.shtml

[TexasF6]

GEOGRAPHY: Staring at Houston: Does Lake Pontchartrain = Galveston Bay?


All we know right now that unless some sort of pool of frigid water bubbles up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, the hot surface water temperatures of the Gulf are going to maintain Hurricane Rita as a monster storm. Where ever Rita hits -- and my bets right now are on Brazoria or Galveston counties in Texas ... assuming the high pressure system that’s parked over the Southeast United States doesn’t do anything wacky in the next 72 hours -- it’s going to be bad. Look at what little-ole Tropical Storm Allison did to Houston in 2001 (above).

Some of the forecasts model take the eye of the storm to an area just to the southwest of Galveston. The closer the northeastern quadrant of the eye wall makes it to Galveston, the more devastating Rita will become. Just consider the geography. Behind Galveston sits Galveston Bay, and behind it the miles of bayous and low-lying swampy land that infiltrate Houston, Harris County, more than 5 million people and a 25-mile-long port complex that "is ranked first in the United States in foreign waterborne commerce, second in total tonnage, and sixth in the world." That’s right, more oil refineries that could be knocked off line for months to come ...

But let’s forget the oil and the economic consequences for just a second. Just as the Times-Picayune predicted a dire situation for New Orleans’ worst-case scenario, the Houston Chronicle too has considered its city's "Big One".
Houston's perfect storm would feed on late summer's warm waters as it barreled northward across the Gulf of Mexico, slamming into the coast near Freeport.

A landfall here would allow its powerful upper-right quadrant, where the waves move in the same direction as the storm, to overflow Galveston Bay. Within an hour or two, a storm surge, topping out at 20 feet or more, would flood the homes of 600,000 people in Harris County. The surge also would block the natural drainage of flooded inland bayous and streams for a day or more.
Coastal residents who ignored warnings to flee would have no hope of escape as waters swelled and winds roiled around their homes. Very likely, hundreds, perhaps even thousands, would die.

Sound familiar? Could Rita be a Carla, the post-1900-benchmark storm for the Houston region?

Fortunately, Houston sits slightly above sea level. But for anyone who has been to Houston well knows, it is not a dry place. One thing you will notice while driving the Sam Houston Tollway on the far outskirts of Houston’s exurbs are the great heights of its highway interchanges. Depressed highways don’t do so well in an area with such a high water table, so in grand Texan style, the highway interchanges soar higher than most Midwestern downtowns. It’s an impressive feat of engineering that’ll hopefully lead people away from of harm’s way. But that won’t do much to prevent a massive storm surge from inundating Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Canal.(I just checked high tide for Saturday morning, and in Galveston Bay, they only seem to be 1.5-2.5 feet. Then again, I am no expert at tidal dynamics. But any high tide timed with a high storm surge is a bad combo.)

When I was in Houston in the fall of 2002, I had the pleasure of touring Transtar, which is the Houston area’s transportation and emergency management center. Its control room is simply amazing, with a huge control room, live camera footage and map displaying water gauges throughout the area. I had happened to be there during a time of flooding, and lights were blinking in one part of the county where the water was rising. Despite the minor emergency, Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert (left) took me and my colleagues at the time out for a fantastic Mexican lunch. From what I saw first-hand at Transtar, Harris County and Houston seem to be better prepared for such an emergency than New Orleans was. (But then again, New Orleans with Katrina was facing a doomsday geographic and hydrological scenario.) But after lunch, I couldn’t help notice how close the drainage ditches on the side of the highway sit to the restaurant. Houston is a saturated place. Mix in Rita, shake and stir, and the results are troublesome.

What does Brendan Loy -- who has been popularized as the blogger from South Bend who predicted the size and scope of the Katrina disaster as the storm was approaching the Louisiana coast -- have to say about Rita? Category 5:
Now, obviously Katrina has changed the panic vs. preparedness equation somewhat, as suggested by my padawan post and my dad's observation (confirmed by what I'm seeing on CNN in the airport terminal) that the cable news networks and even The Weather Channel are taking a "hair on fire" approach to Rita. Still, to see the NHC making such a statement in the discussion, this far in advance, suggests to me that they're very concerned about this storm. Speaking on the phone just now with a fellow weatherblogger (I'm not identifying him because I don't know if he meant his comments to be "on the record" or not, but he can identify himself in comments if he wants), he agreed and said, "Basically, that means it's going to be a Cat. 5, but they don't want to say that because they don't want to hit the 'panic' button."
Then again, it could go further south or east of the Houston area, so all guesses this far in the game are suspect. But they are uncomfortable nontheless.

Image of Tropical Storm Allison in Houston flooding from the city of Austin
Image of Galveston Bay from NOAA
Image of TransStar from the Federal Highway Administration
http://washingtonoculus.blogspot.com/20 ... -lake.html

[opera ghost]

Allison really was a freak event though- I wouldn't expect inland flooding half as bad with any storm that actually moved through- even a Cat5.

There are portions of Houston that could be devastated with a very high surge- but it's nowhere near as bad as New Orleans. For one thing- instead of holding the water back from a big portion of the city with levees- we drain the water out with bayous. We're kinda like swiss cheese. If you dunk Houston in water- it'll mostly drain (I say mostly because of Allison- there comes a point when the bayous are overwhelmed with *fresh* water from rain and can't help the draining- that said The water did go away on it's own after Allison). NO is more like a shallow bowl- you'd have to pump it out.

[shah8]

I think what's more important is that the center is over water. After all, Ike has to rebuild. If it stalls over water for a bit, well, that's more time for the whole rapid intensification bit.

[inda_iwall]

You know, my little"theory/question" might not have been so far off base after all yesterday, I was curious if Ike slowed enough to allow the ridge to weaken and/or move, that it could be pulled northward more, and if it strengthened would it not go poleward more. I really think NOLA could be on the list of strong possibilities in a few days. What are others thinking, and no this is NOT -removed-, as a pro-met early mentioned the earlier northward possibility.

[Txdivermom]

NHC never does dramatic shifts in the track with one advisory. Did the 5pm move at all?

The 5PM moved from Corpus to San Antonio Bay...2 bays up the coast and about 40 mi. With that sort of inching movement...Houston you have (or I should say WE) a problem.

[Air Force Met]

tolakram, even with the shear it'd be difficult to say the conditions will be 'unfavorable'. Really they will only inhibit any rapid strengthening.

The NHC explicitly disagrees.



http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/092051.shtml

The intensity forecast indicates a weakening trend prior to landfall.

Yes it sounds like they are not buying into the Cat. 4 or 5 talk from the GFDL and HRWF models.

Have they ever?

Please don't pay too much attention...or spend too much time focusing on the official intensity forecast. Ike is going to be traveling over 3 warm eddies and have great outflow for most of the trip. The only problem will be the inner eye wall getting out of the way and getting consolidated again.