Hurricane Harbor

A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Jim Williams Video From Hurricane Michael. Turn the Sound Up. From Inside a Category 4 Hurricane. Thursday Morning After a Day at the NC State Fair. Andrew & Michael So Similar.


Let's start off with the official word from the NWS Key West.
One of my favorite NWS offices.
I mean that as in physically and the people there.
And the view from the balloon launch pad..
Nothing out there today.

I know you wanna know what the models say.


European shows something off E Coast.
Far off and far away.
The flow is to the East... however.
It's a watch and wait set up.
You know what the tail end of front's rule.
Also odd westbound waves...
Weather collides often.

GFS says "nothing there to see"


We'll see who is right and wrong.
Either way they will change much in the days to come.
Note GFS has that wet pattern near FL Panhandle.
Less worried on a named storm there as I am RAIN.
Rain adds pain and misery to people there.
Trust me rainy days in Homestead after Andrew were bad.


Jeff Evans posted that picture above.
It's stunning but it's typical of a Cat 4 Hurricane.
It looks like much of Homestead after Andrew.
The trees were gone...
...the street signs were gone.
Hard to find your own home to see if it was gone.
People got lost on their own streets.
Everything looks different after a Major Hurricane.


Great video from Hurricane Michael.
Jim Williams from www.hurricanecity.com
Around 5:21 into it turn the sound up.
You can really hear the sounds of the hurricane.


1st eye wall above.
Total white out...
..as it progresses everything disappears 

Then the eye comes out.
You can see bits of blue.


It was a Metro PCS store. 


Then the eye wall comes back.
It looks like sheets of rain.
Like waves of rain.
Solid white out... 
Lost in the storm.

Know that stretch of road on a nice day...
looks much like this.
It will be a long time before it looks like this again.



2 images below showing how different it is there now.
With most of the electric out.
The way it looked before from up above.
Electricity lights up the night.


After Michael look how few lights there were.
Everything is plunged into darkness.


To be honest that's got two sides to it in that I never saw stars in the sky the way I did after Wilma.  I'm pretty sure I was too in shock to actually remember the darkness after Andrew, or perhaps it's because Collins Avenue a few blocks away from my house on Miami Beach was lit as they have underground cables and the big hotels had generators. After Hurricane Wilma in North Miami Beach it was blacker than you can imagine. You couldn't see a few feet in front of you, and out of the distance you'd see people walking with a flashlight coming down the street; out to walk the door or the kids or just restless. People would stop, talk, share and then move on to talk to someone else outside staring up at the sky and the blanket of stars that lay above our head every night yet we are unaware they are there. There were no lights anywhere for days. That's the beautiful part of no electricity after a hurricane.

The bad part of no electricity after a hurricane at night is subtle and not something you hear much about. There's trash everywhere baking in the hot daytime sun and in the evening the critters come out and when I saw critters I mean rats, big rats, small rats... you can hear them, sometimes see them and sometimes they get into the house as everyone has the door open and the windows open. And that is why people light candles at night, not just to see but to keep the rats away or be able to see them if they are there. Not a pretty side to hurricanes but common days after a hurricane when debris and rotting food is piled about outside baking in the sun and yes it smells. Then it rains and the things outside get moldy, the piles grow higher with trees cut down, furniture people put out there and furniture other people throw in your pile. After Andrew we had a barricade of debris about 7 feet high on every street mostly filled with branches, cut down trees and assorted aluminum awnings or things that went flying in the crazy dark night that was Andrew. I actually watched as some people in a pick up truck driving down the street stopped on our block and heaved a huge wet, sofa onto our debris field and then got in their car and drove away. It rains and the mold gets in the air mixing along with the rotting trash from someone's fridge and the rats scurrying about looking for something to eat. It isn't pretty. It's not for the faint of heart. They say to leave not because you won't survive the storm but AFTER THE STORM it's not a very wonderful world. 


An old article above from 1992 after Andrew and understand this scene is being played out in places after Michael. I wasn't making this stuff up. 


Click on it go ahead if you dare.
Read about the trash and the rats.
And tent cities going up.
Kind of like a war zone after a storm.

I know Michael reminds me in ways of Andrew.
Different but similar.
The devastation is always the same.

The season isn't over.


The two models.

Dabuh reminding us baseball and fall go together.


The Atlantic finds an odd time to try and get busy.
I said "try" didn't I?



And fronts are moving across the country.
Moisture that starts in BOC....
....moves into the Eastern GOM.
Caught up in the flow.


The water is still warm in many places.
October going into November pattern.


This time of year in October...
The hurricane season is like it is in ...
June in ways.
Same areas of development.
But things coming out of the Caribbean...
...usually head NE not NW.
GOM action along a front.
Dead, decaying, dangling fronts off the East Coast.
The year starts with subtropicals...
...the year sometimes ends with subtropicals.
Hybrid storms form.

As for me I went to the Fair yesterday.
Everywhere at the fair were these signs.
Everywhere.
Feel free to donate using this code below.
You can text that number...



And the food ... oh my goodness.


Top right picture shown below.


And Pepsi "Born in the Carolinas"
Is the drink at the Fair.

Okay I obviously love things that spin.


When the weather turns cool up here.
And the Fair comes to town.
You just gotta go enjoy the show.

Army Band put on one awesome show.


And the fireworks.........wow what an end.


There are times you sit in the darkness staring at the stars.
And there's times you get out and enjoy the Fair.
And give thanks the weather is cooler...
...and nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.
At the NC State Fair.




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