A Sea Of Red

Starting pretty early this year. Elsa is a category 1 and will be arriving here in the DR about noon tomorrow. The eye is on track to make landfall a good bit West of my location, near the Haitian border. They have issued tropical storm warnings for here in La Romana.

Stay safe!

Thanks. Shouldn't be too bad here. I'm mainly hoping the power won't be out long with this one. My makeshift inverter system is a bit sketchy lately, and more than a few hours outage will leave me without lights, internet, etc. I really need to spring for an upgrade.

We had a close call in June. Yeah, this looks like this could be an active season like last year. Hopefully a Cat I just slides on by you, Olldflame. But I do feel for those in Haiti who had endured way too many storms in recent years and lack the infrastructure necessary to withstand much of anything.

Pretty sure every season every year will be active moving forward.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑July 3rd, 2021, 9:41 am We had a close call in June. Yeah, this looks like this could be an active season like last year. Hopefully a Cat I just slides on by you, Olldflame. But I do feel for those in Haiti who had endured way too many storms in recent years and lack the infrastructure necessary to withstand much of anything.

It's God's punishment for the voodoo practitioners. (Just kidding. I have Haitian neighbors here, and more than once have heard them comment about how the storms always hit their former home and it is one of the reasons they don't think they will ever go back).

Actually, the biggest reason so many died in the Haitian earthquake was the fact that a lot of houses which in the past would have had thatch or tin roofs were built with concrete roofs specifically to protect against hurricane winds. Not enough $$ left for the amount of re-bar needed for a degree of earthquake protection, and the result was thousands crushed to death.

Elsa has pretty much come and gone here with no real effect except that the fishermen were not allowed to go out this morning and all the restaurants and bars lining the local beach were not allowed to open til 1PM.

Good to hear, Olldflame.

SJ - Hurricane activity will remain cyclical based on the influence of El Nino/La Nina. That is what make assessing seasons particularly challenging. But the warmer waters in the GoM are certainly setting things up to be a but scary in August & September.

For the second time in week we have a tropical storm (Grace) headed straight for us. Fred was just a baby when it hit, and gave us about 12 hours of fairly light rain, which is always a blessing here. Grace will likely be a bit stronger. She should be arriving late tonight.

We are moving into the heart of the season the two months. We have generally been blessed up to this point with a few small exceptions.

Grace took a turn almost due west and just grazed us passing bye. Now headed toward Mexico if it does not change it's path, and could pick up a lot of juice as it crosses the Gulf.

We are watching Grace closely here in Texas

Sly Fox wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 2:41 pm We are watching Grace closely here in Texas

I hear it’s Amazing.

That's what concerns us Texans.

Right now it is projected to hit the Gulf Coast sometime this weekend with the early spaghetti models focused primarily on Northern Mexico. But there is still plenty of time for it to change direction toward Texas. When I lived in Corpus, we were always nervous about storms crossing the Yucatan and then reforming/strengthening in the Bay of Campeche.

Tornado warnings in Lynchburg and Forest tonight.

Ida is for real. The fact that it is hitting on the 16th anniversary of Katrina helps everyone to take this storm seriously. While I am glad that my family is out of harm's way my heart goes out to those desperately trying to get away from the storm that is approaching faster than originally expected.

Category IV storms can be devastating. I have friends along the Louisiana coast as well as into Biloxi. Hopefully this storms surprises us by losing intensity before it reaches the shoreline.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑August 28th, 2021, 1:20 pm Ida is for real. The fact that it is hitting on the 16th anniversary of Katrina helps everyone to take this storm seriously. While I am glad that my family is out of harm's way my heart goes out to those desperately trying to get away from the storm that is approaching faster than originally expected.

Category IV storms can be devastating. I have friends along the Louisiana coast as well as into Biloxi. Hopefully this storms surprises us by losing intensity before it reaches the shoreline.

Will be interesting (in a bad way) to see the ramifications with this on COVID spread and hospitalizations/deaths in general given the dire situation of so many hospitals and emergency services in the south and Louisiana particularly. Their seven-day average per capita average for cases and deaths is third highest in the country for states/territories and hospitalizations fifth. Never a good time for a hurricane to hit, but it’s picking about the worst possible time to roll thru.

Cat IV and climbing! This is projected to be the strongest hurricane to hit the Louisiana coast in 150 years.

The hospital bed situation is even more challenging as they try their best to move folks out of harm's way from hospitals.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 9:00 am Cat IV and climbing! This is projected to be the strongest hurricane to hit the Louisiana coast in 150 years.

The hospital bed situation is even more challenging as they try their best to move folks out of harm's way from hospitals.

Going to be a dystopian level situation down there.

Thinking about our friends at Louisiana Lafayette.