rosethornil wrote:Yawn.
I'm in Norfolk, Virginia and I awakened a few times through the night to see if anything was happening and it was not.
My 85-year-old house is surrounded by 85-year-old oak trees and when I'd look out the windows, a few branches might be swaying ever-so gently. The rain is so light it's barely left puddles in the road.
Furthermore, I'm SHOCKED (shocked, I tell you), that when I went online, I saw that Earl is hovering right over us, RIGHT NOW. Is this one of those childhood memories that isn't quite accurate, for I remember Tropical Storms from the 1980s that were wild rides compared to this.
Earl, you're a wussified storm.
Lastly, I thought this thing was moving on through at 18 mph. I would have thought it'd be all over by 4:30 this morning.
Color me surprised. And slightly bored. We have a great need for some rain. Norfolk had one of the hottest summers on record and I can't tell you how many of my plants died from the countless 95 - 102-degree days. The ocean and bay feels like bathwater. You'd think that factor (warm ocean) would have set the stage for a stronger hurricane.
On a final note, the big problem in my 'hood is flooding. I'm four blocks from the Elizabeth River and these old streets on this filled-in land floods all the time. High tide is right now (4:30 am) so in a few minutes, I'll toddle down to the river and see how high the water is. Can't be but so high - there's no water on my street. When it floods good, we have water down here.
1) Earl is nowhere near 'on top of you'.
2) Earl has weakened significantly since it was at its peak.
3) Why are you wishing for a strong hurricane to hit you?
I spent nearly 27 years of my life growing up near the gulf coast. I have lived through more tropical storms and hurricanes than I care to remember, and every time a tropical storm blew through with only 50 or 60 mph winds sustained I always thought the same as you - even if it was nowhere near us.
Dennis was the last storm I had that feeling about. We were progged to get 115mph sustained winds after it made landfall. It moved to our east and we only got a couple inches of rain and a few low gusts. Ivan was the same way, only with higher gusts but nothing at hurricane force.
Katrina changed all of that. While I was 70 miles inland, we got sustained winds for a time of over 100mph with gusts well over 135mph. That was just a category 2 storm. I hesitate to think what it was like on the coast while it was a Cat 3, or worse yet near LA as a cat 4. New Orleans got absolutely nothing in terms of wind and rain, and yet the water pounding around the city was enough to flood it a day later. On the east side of the storm, Katrina knocked out power all the way to the TN border.
You do not ever want a major hurricane to hit right where you are - and I guarantee you, even if Earl as a category 2 was actually right on top of you (which it is not), you would notice it and you wouldn't call it a 'wussified' storm.
Surface reports are way below from what that shows
