Hurricanes, tropical storms and the like from 2018

About to get slammed by Florence. Wish me luck, y'all.

Godspeed, Friendperson!

Here's some links to keep informed outside of your local news for people in the path of Florence:

National Hurricane Center

National Weather Service Offices:

Newport/Morehead City

Raleigh

Charleston

Columbia

Double post: One of the models is predicting a worst case scenario: Florence stalling out right offshore Wilmington, North Carolina all day Friday.

Edited by tclittle on Sep 11th 2018 at 2:09:44 PM

Triple post: Hurricane Warnings have been issued from South Santee River, South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina, including Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers.

Also, models are predicting 2 to 4 feet of rain. That's not as much as Harvey's 4 to 6 feet, but, as we've said before, I would recommend you look at your evacuation plans and make sure to find a shelter out of a flood plain.

Also, the NHC track has shifted south, with the remnants of Florence possibly moving into northern Georgia after landfall.

Meanwhile, Mangkhut is expected◊ to move over Luzon as a Category 5 equivalen, Philippines and then into China. Note that intensity forecasts of typhoons are even less reliable than these of hurricanes.

There's a chance it might brush up against the southern part of Taiwan too by this weekend.

Taiwan is keeping a close eye on this — we've been hit by enough typhoons to take them very seriously.

I live in the northern part of Taiwan, as do the rest of my family members who are in Taiwan. So while our lives are probably not in danger...it's going to suck. We will likely at least be hit by heavy rainfall and strong wind. Which is still shitty since in certain parts of Taiwan that's all it takes for massive flooding to happen.

So Typhoon Mangkhut is heading up your way... I've got a bit of a favor to ask, M84.

Earlier this week when the storm hit, it sadly tore away one of my neighbor's tin roofs, along with his wife who was somehow still holding on to one of the pieces. Real tragedy, I know.

So if you see a part of my neighbor's tin roof during or after the storm, can you mail the tin back to us on Guam? Thanks. You can keep the wife as compensation, I don't think he wants her back.

...I really hope you're joking. Because dang, that is kind of morbid.

And anyway, she and the tin would be more likely to end up in the Philippines. Though considering Duterte's in charge of the place, maybe she'd be better off riding the typhoon.

Edited by M84 on Sep 13th 2018 at 12:03:25 AM

You're from Taiwan? And all this time I thought you were from the good old U.S of A.

I am from the USA. I'm a born USA citizen. I currently work and live overseas in Taiwan. Most of my extended family lives in Taiwan as well.

Edited by M84 on Sep 13th 2018 at 1:25:22 AM

Ah.

• Olivia has made landfall on Maui on 19:10 UTC and on Lanai half a hour later. As a tropical storm, mind you. Still, it's the first time a storm has landed there if memory serves.
• Florence has weakened to Cat 3 but has also grown in size. The prospect of a deluge is becoming more concrete as the forecast has Florence crawling southwest along the coast of the Carolinas and kicking up a storm surge/dumping down a megaflood.
• Subtropical Storm Joyce has formed west of the Azores, it probably won't develop much.
• Helene is going to pass west or through the Azores in a few days. It will probably undergo extratropical transition northwest of Spain later.
• Isaac may pass through the Lesser Antilles tomorrow as a tropical storm. From there on it will either break up into a tropical wave or reform in the Western Caribbean.
• A tropical depression will move into Texas soon.
• Mangkhut will in a few days pass over northern Luzon as a Cat 4-5 typhoon and in four days as a weaker typhoon into China between Hong Kong and Hainan. Both are likely to experience tropical storm conditions.

10 PM EDT UPDATE ON FLORENCE

LOCATION...34.0N 76.7W
ABOUT 50 MI...80 KM S OF MOREHEAD CITY NORTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 70 MI...115 KM ESE OF WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...100 MPH...160 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NW OR 305 DEGREES AT 5 MPH...8 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...956 MB...28.23 INCHES

So it looks like Mangkhut is moving south away from Taiwan and will hit the northern Philippine island of Luzon. Taiwan will probably get nothing more than heavy rainfall in the southern and eastern regions.

So while that sucks for the Philippines, it looks like Taiwan dodged another typhoon.

Florence is behaving a little oddly. Winds are decreasing but so is the minimum pressure apparently.

Re Mangkhut note that according to the JTWC graphic there will still be some wind in southern Taiwan as well as Hong Kong and possibly Manila.

In Taiwan that's still considered dodging a typhoon. We've got somewhat different standards here after being hit so many times with typhoons, floods, and earthquakes.

Particularly since we were expecting worse.

Edited by M84 on Sep 14th 2018 at 2:45:11 AM

Florence has made landfall on Wrightsville Beach NC, as a Category 1 hurricane.

Any Tropers in that area, stay safe!

According to this there's flooding and the danger that the storm sits where it is for another day.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Sep 14th 2018 at 10:34:13 AM

Mangkhut is closing in on the Philippines and apparently part of the eyewall is just moving ashore in Luzon.

(PAGASA says that it has made landfall, but according to their own coordinates, the centre of the eye is still on water 15km away from land)

CNN is reporting at least 4 fatalities due to Florence.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/14/us/hurricane-florence-south-east-coast-wxc/index.html

If anybody's wondering: Helene is meandering towards the UK, Isaac is going towards Mexico south of Cuba, and Joyce is puttering out in the mid-Atlantic. None of them seen very strong.

It should be pointed out that Issac is on a very similar course Harvey took last year, and when Harvey degenerated back into a tropical wave, and then exploded from wave to category 4 hurricane to landfall over a three day period.

Our major hope is for Issac to completely dissipate before reaching even reaching the Gulf of Mexico.

That would not be a sufficient thing to hope for, since Isaac is only going to become a tropical wave at worst and Harvey at that stage also was a tropical wave.

Meanwhile, Mangkhut neé Ompong is on the cusp of re-emerging into the sea, but it has weakened a fair bit since landfall. Apparently it's the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane now.

Bunch of new tropical storms in the Atlantic, called Leslie and Kirk. None of them is going to hit land anywhere soon.

However, it looks like in a few days Typhoon Trami might pay Taiwan a visit. For those keeping score, it's been the turn of Japan (Jebi), Philippines (Mangkhut), China (Maria and Mangkhut) so far.