ATL: MARIA - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[GCANE]

 https://twitter.com/NOAASatellites/status/911263295671283717

[northjaxpro]

My eyes are a bit tired, or possibly I may be reading too much in the satellite presentation. However, I do believe that Maria may have finally began her move more north now.

[Rail Dawg]

Been chasing Hurricanes since Andrew back in the 90's.

My observation over the years are that gusts don't come as unified front.

They come down out of the sky as what I call "The Fists of God".

These are very powerful bursts about 300 feet across carrying very heavy rain and absolutely devastating localized gusts.

It's why (I think) we some some structures/trees absolutely smashed while others remain relatively unscathed.

I saw many in Irma while I was in Naples and it had been awhile since I'd seen winds this strong.

These meso-vorts or "Fists of God" when seen up-close are absolutely amazing to witness.

[caneman]

Has anyone heard anything out of Comerio, P.R.? Have a friend that went there to stay with his elderly parents. His wife hasn't heard from him since. How bad were they hit, devastation, links. Thanks

[flamingosun]

For those looking for information about relatives and friends in Puerto Rico:

If you have not been able to contact your loved one in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, the territory’s Federal Affairs Administration is asking people to do the following:

▪ Contact the island’s disaster relief team by e-mailing maria1@prfaa.pr.gov

Because of high volume, leaders are asking that you only send one email — no follow-ups — unless the status of your loved one has changed.

Include your contact information and as many details about your family member or friend as possible.

from:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article174712711.html

Edited to add:
There is some additional info in the article cited about phone numbers where they are taking names for a list for welfare checks, a local radio station that's still broadcasting, and a link to the Red Cross.

[sponger]

Has anyone heard anything out of Comerio, P.R.? Have a friend that went there to stay with his elderly parents. His wife hasn't heard from him since. How bad were they hit, devastation, links. Thanks

Not good with river cresting at 75 feet. Hopefully they found higher ground.

[flamingosun]

Has anyone heard anything out of Comerio, P.R.? Have a friend that went there to stay with his elderly parents. His wife hasn't heard from him since. How bad were they hit, devastation, links. Thanks

Not good with river cresting at 75 feet. Hopefully they found higher ground.

See post above yours for information that may be of interest for finding out about the status of people in PR.

There is also a post farther back that cites information that the river gauge readings are NOT accurate. I will try to find it and quote it below for you.

[flamingosun]

Here it is:

On TWC they have been talking about the massive flooding around PR. One of the river gauges is measuring nearly 80 feet, which is WAY above any reading ever for that particular river.

I know that flooding is to be expected, given the rate of rainfall and the terrain, but some of those readings are crazy high, and they shot up crazy fast, too.

I just hope and pray that those things are somehow malfunctioning. Please Lord, let them be broken.

Good news then, they are. It's quite likely there is record flooding on this waterway, but it certainly is not 80ft.

TWC posted the graph found here: https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrogr ... gage=comp4

However, that gauge is officially marked "Flood Damaged" on the USGS site and those results have been voided and have been replaced with "Flood Damaged". This can be seen in this table: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/pr/nwis/uv?c ... 2017-09-20

In fact, many of the gauges on that waterway and in PR in general are currently officially broken, as can be seen https://waterdata.usgs.gov/pr/nwis/current?index_pmcode_STATION_NM=1&index_pmcode_DATETIME=2&index_pmcode_00065=3&index_pmcode_45592=4&group_key=basin_cd&sitefile_output_format=html_table&column_name=site_no&column_name=station_nm&format=html_table&sort_key_2=site_no&html_table_group_key=basin_cd&rdb_compression=file&list_of_search_criteria=realtime_parameter_selection here.

It's a reasonably safe bet that there's probably more that are of questionable reliability at this point. It's also a reasonably safe bet that the weather.gov site with the nice graphics just polls for new results from the USGS data feed and doesn't re-request all the old data, leading to why it still shows that graph.

--------------------

That gauge is marked on the USGS site as having an operational limit of 35ft.

Even if you didn't know that, I know, and I'm sure the people working at TWC know that flood gauges aren't typically built in a way that they could record multiple times the record flood level accurately. You'd have to have this gauge on a 100ft high platform over this river!

They're either incompetent to a degree I find implausible (and didn't know where to look at the USGS data sources), or they're dishonest. Either way, putting that graph on a television at all and letting scared people think there is even a chance it could be real is appalling piece of fearmongering that deserves condemnation in my opinion. I've seen this posted multiple times on other sites besides this one as well.

Thanks for posting this. I had no doubt there were malfunctions. the readings were just unbelievable absent a possibility of a landslide dam and subsequent catastrophic failure. I'm surprised they were just shown by otherwise reputable sources without question. frankly they just didn't make sense. Nevertheless the flooding situation is no doubt terrible and still unfolding.

[NDG]

Maria is looking much better this afternoon than it was this morning.

[otowntiger]

Been chasing Hurricanes since Andrew back in the 90's.

My observation over the years are that gusts don't come as unified front.

They come down out of the sky as what I call "The Fists of God".

These are very powerful bursts about 300 feet across carrying very heavy rain and absolutely devastating localized gusts.

It's why (I think) we some some structures/trees absolutely smashed while others remain relatively unscathed.

I saw many in Irma while I was in Naples and it had been awhile since I'd seen winds this strong.

These meso-vorts or "Fists of God" when seen up-close are absolutely amazing to witness.

I presume you got some footage? If so, where can I see it? thanks.

[ChucktownStormer]

Been chasing Hurricanes since Andrew back in the 90's.

My observation over the years are that gusts don't come as unified front.

They come down out of the sky as what I call "The Fists of God".

These are very powerful bursts about 300 feet across carrying very heavy rain and absolutely devastating localized gusts.

It's why (I think) we some some structures/trees absolutely smashed while others remain relatively unscathed.

I saw many in Irma while I was in Naples and it had been awhile since I'd seen winds this strong.

These meso-vorts or "Fists of God" when seen up-close are absolutely amazing to witness.

The internal structure of a TC pretty much confirms your observations. Instead of being one big mass of rain and wind, a TC actually consists of concentric bands of wind and rain with calmer pockets in between. These pockets are typically 10 or so miles wide. So during a hurricane you'll see bursts of high winds and heavy rain at pretty consistent intervals with the intensity of the gusts increasing as you get closer to the eye.

[Hurricane_Apu]

Dam failure in Puerto Rico... somewhere in the NW corner of the island. Not sure how big it is or who/what is downstream.

[GCANE]

 https://twitter.com/WeatherNation/status/911274290145771521

[GCANE]

 https://twitter.com/NWSSanJuan/status/911290535490543621

[Raebie]

Dam failure in Puerto Rico... somewhere in the NW corner of the island. Not sure how big it is or who/what is downstream.

News reporting they are evacuating 2 nearby towns, Isabela and Quebradillas.

[stormreader]

Dam failure in Puerto Rico... somewhere in the NW corner of the island. Not sure how big it is or who/what is downstream.

News reporting they are evacuating 2 nearby towns, Isabela and Quebradillas.

From what I've seen from damage pics from San Juan, probably not the worst of what happened, the total breakdown in power and communications for the territory, and reports of human want and need, this could be the beginnings of a serious humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. If so, the next 3 days or so might only begin to show the true human and material cost of Maria. Hope I'm wrong. Could be very much pain in Puerto Rico.

[terstorm1012]

Dam failure in Puerto Rico... somewhere in the NW corner of the island. Not sure how big it is or who/what is downstream.

I believe it is this dam and it's a sizeable one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guajataca_Lake

[stormreader]

Heavy damage over very large areas in Puerto Rico.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxs37r9-_zs

[sikkar]

Can very warm waters help Maria beat the shear and intensify?

[PandaCitrus]

Very extensive on the ground damage tour of Roseau/Castle Rock area of Dominica. Even if you don't watch the whole video, scan through different parts. It's really something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUt14_5P_HQ



Link: https://youtu.be/FUt14_5P_HQ