ATL: LAURA - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[Jr0d]

Storm surge is generally highest on the right side of my the storm, as it allows for more water to pile up. Cameron took a direct hit, so it is very likely the surge was significantly worse to the east of Cameron. That area is sparsely populated so reports of high surge will be minimal until teams can go in an access the damage.

It does appear it was not as high as originally expected and the worst surge hit the least populated areas.

[Ken711]

Lake Charles NWS radar is found to be destroyed. Similar to PR radar after Maria

https://twitter.com/AlaStormTracker/status/1298992015405805570?s=20

It captured one hell of an iconic last shot as it went, also similar to Maria

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/678456926387830795/748557997243891722/Screenshot_20200827-100155.png

What an ominous looking hurricane photo.

[Steve]

I don’t want to downplay any of this damage whatsoever, but I expected so much more to be flattened and underwater when I woke up, especially after hearing what they were forecasting. This is great news though. Perhaps the storm wasn’t as catastrophic as they thought? My prayers go out to those though who did suffer damage or lost their homes

Closer to the cost there will be more damage except there isn't much of anything there anymore. Lake Charles is fairly far inland and does have substantial structural and roof damage to a lot of homes and businesses. But it could have been worse and certainly would have if this was a city on the Gulf or not as far inland as it is. The weather people here always suggested that every mile of coastal marsh can knock a category of surge and other effects off a storm - like a wave break or whatever. I don't know if that's just an old urban legend, but with the lost of coastal marshes throughout the rest of the state, luckily they still had a bit there.

[Rail Dawg]

Waiting for surge to recede. 20’ last night down here I’m told.

Chuck

[Rail Dawg]

Am with search and rescue and coroner on LA27 trying to get to Cameron. High water. They can’t make it without airboats.

Lots of damage down here. Just outside Hackberry waiting for water to recede.

Extensive damage homes wiped off foundations. Looking for folks in trouble or did not make it.

I love these Cajuns. This is THE Cajun country. Good people to the core.

[psyclone]

I'm expecting the Lake Charles radar site to crash peak storm and continue to display a terrifying image of Laura's core...much like PR's radar did during Maria. This is going to be a multi generational "date" storm for the impact zone. Everyone will speak in pre and post Laura terms for a couple of generations...much like those in south florida have done for Andrew or those on the MS gulf coast and SE LA coast do for Katrina. Another random thought about hurricane season in general...this will be another massive anniversary storm that fits nicely into the anniversary storm calendar hot zone...latter August into October. We're just into the hot zone. Dr Gray is still correct..for the bell hath tolled.

OK this post aged well. No doubt I have some far less impressive ones peppering this thread. what an insane storm. I tended to dismiss the cat 4/5 debate last night and think in differing terms.
A.) This is the new benchmark storm for this region in term of intensity. The bump right no doubt took the very worst just to the east into less populated regions but by any measure...wow.
B.) It was an extraordinary weather event. A high end cat 4 gets a super typhoon designation in the west pac.
C.) A cat 4 is an extreme event.

It's not yet September and we have had a cat 1 in TX, NC and a cat 4 in LA. Do you really think we're done stateside? Possible but I do not (lookin' at you FL). Catch your breath, count your blessings, enjoy a much deserved break and stay alert and be ready.

[cheezyWXguy]

Waiting for surge to recede. 20’ last night down here I’m told.

Chuck

It seems like since Laura was a little east of expected landfall, any 20ft surge would be slightly east of the area originally expected in the afternoon (east of lake Charles area instead of in it). Is that something you’ve seen or intend to check out?

[RL3AO]

In hindsight, Eric Blake deserves a lot of credit for not over doing the westward shift on Tuesday morning. It was looking like a Houston storm after those early morning runs, but he kept the NHC forecast on the eastern side of the guidance with a landfall near the TX/LA border.

[Steve]

In hindsight, Eric Blake deserves a lot of credit for not over doing the westward shift on Tuesday morning. It was looking like a Houston storm after those early morning runs, but he kept the NHC forecast on the eastern side of the guidance with a landfall near the TX/LA border.

As was posted earlier, they weren't off by much 3 days out. This may be one of their best efforts as hysteria was sweeping through one of our nation's largest cities. Even people on this board were on edge and anxious. I don't blame them. But in the end, NHC was right. The eye came in slightly east of where I thought it would. I had it a hair closer to the border. It could have gone either way, but people should have been watching the SW flow ahead of Laura along the TX Coast and giving it its due for the barrier it represented (vis a vis upper features related to steering).

Also great of the NHC not to buy into the EPS hype. While the ensembles are usually a better indicator than solely an operational run of a model, it should be clear to everyone now that is not always the case. EC ensembles were way too far west up until yesterday's runs. You had Ryan Maue and others spamming twitter with those runs while the NHC calmly put out difficult forecast after difficult forecast. It's easy to do a drive-by attack (even a disguised one). It's harder to do the right thing and be right.

[PandaCitrus]

If you look at google earth east of Cameron, there's very little. The tiny tiny settlements of Creole and Grand Chenier may have gotten the worst of the surge. But it looks like there are probably under 50 homes in both settlements combined.

All in all, a lot of people got lucky in the track. The damage would have been completely different if it hit TX/LA border or closer to Galveston.

Waiting for surge to recede. 20’ last night down here I’m told.
Chuck

It seems like since Laura was a little east of expected landfall, any 20ft surge would be slightly east of the area originally expected in the afternoon (east of lake Charles area instead of in it). Is that something you’ve seen or intend to check out?

[SconnieCane]

Hackberry, LA (western shore of Calcasieu Lake) from Reed:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=75110 ... 12g4gcwKN8

[Rail Dawg]

Waiting for surge to recede. 20’ last night down here I’m told.

Chuck

It seems like since Laura was a little east of expected landfall, any 20ft surge would be slightly east of the area originally expected in the afternoon (east of lake Charles area instead of in it). Is that something you’ve seen or intend to check out?

Am south and east of Lake Charles on large bridge over Intracoastal Waterway.

The Waterway is currently a river and there are minor waterfalls pouring into it draining the swamps.

[cheezyWXguy]

Waiting for surge to recede. 20’ last night down here I’m told.

Chuck

It seems like since Laura was a little east of expected landfall, any 20ft surge would be slightly east of the area originally expected in the afternoon (east of lake Charles area instead of in it). Is that something you’ve seen or intend to check out?

Am south and east of Lake Charles on large bridge over Intracoastal Waterway.

The Waterway is currently a river and there are minor waterfalls pouring into it draining the swamps.

Thanks Rail Dawg. Really appreciated your input in Michael and this one too.

[TheAustinMan]

The extent of the storm surge and the advance of the Gulf of Mexico is quite apparent on GOES-16 enhanced satellite imagery, seen in this comparison between the 24th and this morning. It's been obscured by cloud cover, but I'm not sure Marsh Island currently exists right now.

3.8 MB. Source: RAMMB SLIDER

[Blow_Hard]

That's not completely accurate. Michael was moving every bit as fast as Laura, if not slightly faster. And I'm not sure about Lake Charles, but as someone very familiar with Tally -> Pcola, Panama City was not built to code. Lots of older structures predating Andrew. I do agree with your point about distance from the coast, it's right on St Andrews Bay (hence the name Bay County). I also think due to Michael's continued RI through landfall as a Cat-5, more Cat-5 gusts mixed down to the surface. Laura seemed to level off just a tad. Hung out ~ 938 hPa from the 7 CDT advisory onward.

As a resident of Panama City I agree with both of you. Larry is correct in his assertion that many of the buildings in Downtown PC were old and definitely not built to code. However, I agree with Panda because we were in the western eyewall for over 2 hours and if you go back and look at images of Michael at LF you'll notice the western eyewall was very, very intense. There were many, many structures on 23rd st and points north that were newer and built to code and they were obliterated. I live 8 miles north of town rightoff Hwy 231 and on my street there was a home that had been built by the contractor who lived in the home and he had put rebar in the foundation and the studs were fastened to that to take extra precautions. After the storm the four walls were all that were left of his home, I think the greatest testament to Michael's strength was blowing rail cars off the tracks. An empty boxcar weighs about 30-50 tons. I know I've probably harped excessively about Michael but being an avid extreme weather junkie who always used to get pumped in anticipation of experiencing a TC, I can tell you that going through Michael changed my perspective forever and I will be perfectly fine if I never experience another Storm or Hurricane.

Yes, he/she is right. Didn't take the eye going east of town into account, but the Springfield/Callaway/Parker area was hit even harder (Wewa Hwy was breathtakingly bad when I drove through it the first time) which did get the eye. I was going to be in the area where my gf was in Gulf County at the time but stayed in TLH.

Yeah Larry, Callaway, Springfield, Parker etc. to the brunt in the Panama City area and there are thousands of homes that are uninhabitable in those areas. The western part of the eye went over Callaway. Tyndall AFB found the top of one of their towers in the woods near Wewa. l

[Tyler Penland]

Not sure if this was shared but the Calcasieu Pass station which went through the center of the eye at landfall bottomed out at 940mb at 0554UTC.

Max gust of 110.22kts with a max sustained of 81kts in the northern eyewall. Max gust of 92.92kts and max sustained of 74.45kts in the southern eyewall.

Ambient air temp rose from 77 pre-storm to 82.8 in each eyewall.

Max surge was 8.88ft.

[vbhoutex]

In hindsight, Eric Blake deserves a lot of credit for not over doing the westward shift on Tuesday morning. It was looking like a Houston storm after those early morning runs, but he kept the NHC forecast on the eastern side of the guidance with a landfall near the TX/LA border.

As was posted earlier, they weren't off by much 3 days out. This may be one of their best efforts as hysteria was sweeping through one of our nation's largest cities. Even people on this board were on edge and anxious. I don't blame them. But in the end, NHC was right. The eye came in slightly east of where I thought it would. I had it a hair closer to the border. It could have gone either way, but people should have been watching the SW flow ahead of Laura along the TX Coast and giving it its due for the barrier it represented (vis a vis upper features related to steering).

Also great of the NHC not to buy into the EPS hype. While the ensembles are usually a better indicator than solely an operational run of a model, it should be clear to everyone now that is not always the case. EC ensembles were way too far west up until yesterday's runs. You had Ryan Maue and others spamming twitter with those runs while the NHC calmly put out difficult forecast after difficult forecast. It's easy to do a drive-by attack (even a disguised one). It's harder to do the right thing and be right.

The bolded italic underlined statement is the one thing that allowed me to finally breath easier living here in Houston. It literally held up longer than expected and BLOCKED any further Westward movement. We basically got nothing in Houston except some almost TS gusts and maybe a spit or two of rain. For that I am so thankful!!
MAJOR KUDOS TO NHC!! LITERALLY NAILED IT!!!

[Jr0d]

Anyone know how to donate or have a link for donations to the Cajun Navy?

They do an incredible job and if I donate, I want to know it is going to the right place.

[Portastorm]

Anyone know how to donate or have a link for donations to the Cajun Navy?

They do an incredible job and if I donate, I want to know it is going to the right place.

Check this out: https://www.cajunnavyrelief.com/

[otowntiger]

In hindsight, Eric Blake deserves a lot of credit for not over doing the westward shift on Tuesday morning. It was looking like a Houston storm after those early morning runs, but he kept the NHC forecast on the eastern side of the guidance with a landfall near the TX/LA border.

Agreed- and yet another example of humans doing a good job of blending scientific data, analysis, climatology, experience and good old fashioned forecasting for an outcome that exceeds any single computer model or group of models.