Hurricane Harbor: ISAIAS - Death Toll Climbs, Millions Lose Power. Fast Moving ISAIAS Slams into NY NJ NE Twisters, Trees Down, Fires. Hurricane History of Speedy Storms.

Wind History of Isaias

An unusual alignment of factors came together to create the devastating impacts of Tropical Storm Isaias along the East Coast. Trying to keep it simple here, basically the combination of the energy of the Tropial Storm merging with the trof and a feature known as a Jet Streak aided it's movement and fast forward speed and maintenance of a wind field of Tropical Storm strength further enhanced by the fast foward speed on top of the winds that nomally would wane inland that far North but rather were enhanced. The storm you got in New York and New Jersey was a far cry from the one that approached South Florida and struggled to get it's act together most of it's life. I'm trying to keep this simple here to understand what happened today.

https://www.weather.gov/lmk/jet_streaks#:~:text=A%20%22jet%20streak

%22%20refers%20to,downstream)%20side%20of%20the%20streak.

NWS definition of a Jet Streak

This has happened in history many times when a hurricane took aim at the Carolinas and caught a ride on a front moving fast and furious far inland causing flooding, trees torn out of the ground often accompanied by Tornadoes that further ripped at the landscape and in the old days destroyed the crops in Virginia and Maryland. Old weather logs are filled with the voracity and fast moving speed of a storm that made landfall further to the south yet moved more like a derecheo and speeded it's way from town to town destroying people's lives. In the old days no one saw it coming, it was like a flash fire of sorts but one of moisture, wind, tornadoes, flooding and it just came out of nowhere and after they cleaned up as much as they could salvage and sometimes had to bury the dead they would sit down and write about what just happened and we find those records when we study Hurricane History.

It's hard to say that Isaias was kind as it could have been worse and we were able to see it coming, but my question and concern here is whether with all the hype of this storm the impacts were properly coveyed to the public in a way that they could understand and prepare. It's a case of a tree falling in a forest and no one is there to hear it. People in 2020 were taken unaware by the coming of what was like a meteorological bullet train tearing down trees, scaffolding, ripping boats out of the water and rearranging some places with Tornadoes and other places with Flash Floods.

Isaias in Florida was a weak tropical storm that barely could get it together. As it moved North over the warm waters of the Gulfstream it stayed alive and tried hard to become an entity. Again a storm that develops over Africa weith negative conditions and survives even when it befuddles meteorologists how it's even still alive and moving intact is a storm you need to worry about. While it struggled in Florida it found it's groove in the Carolinas as it hooked up with the trof and the Jet Streak showered it with champaign and trips to see the East Coast. You can Google this phenomenon it's not hard to understand as long as you realize the atmosphere is a river that is always doing wild things and today was a wild ride for Isaias and everyone living along the East Coast.

So did Hazel have that sort of enhancement when it moved fast inland after making landfall and scrurrying it's way to Raleigh faster than anyone expected? We can guess and assume the answer but there is no satellite data for those storms... all we have is records of the destructive force of both of those that and other historic hurricanes. We do have news reals, videos and documentaries.

Hazel is shown below. You can Google it and find out more about it's amazing historical impact.
It also made landfall very close to where Isaias did.

Then there's the 1938 Hurricane that books and movies have been made about; Hazel left a legend filled with stories passed down in that part of the world from one generation to another.