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!

Tuesday, August 04, 2020

TROPICAL STORM ISAIAS CONTINUES ON IT'S RAMPAGE UP THE EAST COAST. Power outages out in NYC NJ NE, Trees Down. 5 Dead Already From This Deadly Storm.

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ISAIAS ios moving so fast if you read this tonight.
You won't see it as it updates in real time.
Nothing expected to form for a while.
Now we clean up.

So far 5 people have died from ISAIAS.

This video was from yesterday.
Strong wind gusts as I was filming in Raleigh.


Long blog today as I needed to process everything that happened yesterday, last night and this morning things are still happening in New York where two of my daughters live. Less than 24 hours after I stook in a field with a bit of open sky taking video with wind pulling at me violently for a few minutes in North Carolina ......my daughter drove through the streets of NYC with her dash cam on so I could see what she was seeing. I think there's a little bit of storm chaser in her though she's the child who insists she doesn't like storms.

Once back in Brooklyn there were trees down ..
..branches blown in the wind.
On Facetime with her now.
Power is out anywhere.
Trees down on cars in Ditmas Park.


Yesterday was wild and exhilirating but also a little exhausting. Why exhausting? Just in case we had strong winds we had to move some furniture off the balcony and I had to make sure things were clean and put candles out "in case" and there was so much going on there was barely time to breathe. Not often do I get a chance to chase a Tropical Storm in my own city of Raleigh which is neatly tucked away in a somewhat "safe zone" rarely getting snow storms and hardly ever getting Tropical Storms. History is littered with cases where Tropical Storms did make it this far inland and we are remembered everywhere as the snow storm of 2014 when cars sliding down a slick hill that iced over fast as the snow was falling fast and furious about on the Internet. Mention Raleigh and a chance of snow and that infamous picture shows up. It's a very steep hill, when the ground freezes immediately cars slide. It's science. It's also a part of North Carolina history that the beautiful first capital in New Bern was moved to Raleigh further inland where it was safer and more centrally located. New Bern is more prone to hurricanes and while it was capital it was flooded twice on the level of Florence flooding so now it's known as the place where Pepsi was born and a beautiful place to spend some time.

So this time New Bern did not flood and the strongest weather was not at Kill Devil Hills but along an interior part of North Carolina after a landfall at Ocean Isle Beach just across the border from South Carolina at a place where the land juts out and has some of the most beautiful South facing beaches in the area.  It's a bit like Sanibel Island as that spate of beach is famous for catching shells and sand dollars lay littered on the beach at sunrise and it often catches a hurricane that comes in at an odd angle moving fast such as Hazel did in the way way Isaias did yesterday. Knowing this area, meteorolgy and knowing the current synoptics  it seemed an obvious possibility for landfall. I wrote that in this blog on July 30th and talked on it on Twitter as a possible landfall. And that is where it made landfall. Places such as Southport not that far from there also facing South got slammed by the storm You've seen Sourthport in many movies and TV shows yet didn't realize it because the film industry knowsn how beautiful it is but they face that danger every hurricane season. The bridge to Ocean Isle Beach is a glorious ride and there's some incredible fish restaurants in the area where the fish is so fresh you would swear the chef caught it special for you after you ordered it from your waiter. There's video at the bottom of this blog, enjoy.


https://www.ourstate.com/hazel/
Read the story ... it's a great read.
Awesome pictures.
Prose better than any best selling novel!

Years ago on the blog and online I said I thought Hurricane Charley could turn in and make landfall around Port Charlotte. When it did that I was in awe that I really not only said it but said it in the blog and online taking a chance where I could easily be made fun of as others saw it moving towards Tampa or other Florida popular landfalls. Studying the Water Vapor Loop it seemed plausible that Charley would make that turn around Port Charlotte. 

https://www.wect.com/2020/08/03/multiple-fires-spark-ocean-isle-beach-isaias-moves-shore/


What is most amazing about North Carolina is that every beach area has it's own look, it's own feel and literally it's own type of shells. The sand feels different, the breeze unique and at some point you find a few places tucked away near a Bogue or at the edge of the ocean and they are your favorite places to go and stay and bask in it's beauty.  Florida beaches are tropical and scenic and everyone looks like a movie star or a model but North Carolina beaches are very real family destinations and sometimes just that loner who needed to live near the water, found a place he loved and made it his own.

Video from Oak Island Last night.
Just down the road from Ocean Isle Beach.
Definitely a hurricane making landfall.


In Myrtle Beach there was drama last night.
Street flooding. Storm surge.
Not as bad as Hazel thankfully.
But a day to clean up today.



So what else can I say? If I tell you where Isaias is right now by the time you read this it might be in New England not Philly or New York or even Canada. This storm moves like Superman, faster than a speeding bullet.


There's a controversy of sorts by many as to whether Isaias was a hurricane or how strong it was and well weather people do so love to shoot the tropical breeze and give their opinion. Ask Cantore battling crazy winds in Wrightsville or people in Hilton Head who had a little rain and no wind as it passed by. Ask someone whose car was flooded in Myrtle Beach and watched the overwash come flooding in as it does there when a storm is nearby; Myrtle Beach had the third highest recorded storm surge in history and that's hard to belive. But if you get to Myrtle Beach, one of my favorite places here, you can stand on the boardwalk by the Historical Marker that tells you what Hurricane Hazel did to that fun, happy resort that wasn't so fun after Hazel as Hazel changed everything. Ask someone in Brooklyn living in Ditmas Park who just looked outside and found a huge tree on their car. It was a hurricane, not your Momma's hurricane and it wasn't the most picture perfect hurricane but it delivered the punch of a hurricane.

Here's a Hazel History Marker near there.
Click this link and you can pretend you are there and read the marker.
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=100719

As for the yellow and orange circle I ignored while dealing with Isaias got to tell you it's not expected to develop and it is expected to fade away. And, as always after a big event the Atlantic goes quiet and models show that nothing will form in the next week or so. But as always I'll remind you that this is the type of year when things appear close in and pop up suddenly and everyone forgets that the forecast said nothing will form for the next five days. 

Again I'll say it again, I do believe ISAIAS was as dress rehearsal for a hurricane that will come this way again later in the season. I could be wrong, as my daughter who told me this morning she knows nothing about weather explained to someone that it's hard to predict when it will rain exactly in 5 days because everything is always changing and well she knows way more than she thinks obviously. I had Isaias yesterday in Raleigh she's getting it now in Brooklyn and she asked whether she should warrn her best friend in Toronto. She gets it... if it got to NYC faster than Amtrak gets you from Philly to NYC than that's one fast moving storm! I've been on the phone with her all day so yes today is Part 1 of yesterday, exhilarating and a bit exhausting. 

Have a beautiful day. I'm so grateful the power is on and there is no damge near where I live from Isaias yet up the road near the Virgina border in Bertie County near Winslow a twister touched down and at least one person is dead and several are missing. People are picking through the rubble and I do mean rubble and the marina in Southport has heavy damage.

https://www.wral.com/isaias-leaves-giant-pile-of-broken-boats-at-southport-marina/19218531/

I know maybe you live in Arkansas and think why would anyone want to live in Hurricane Country, down near the coast? Because most days of the year and some years no hurricanes come near... it's paradise and beautiful.  Watch the video below, it takes my breath away. How someone feels worrying on their bit of paradise when a hurricane was approaching and you wonder if you will ever see it again. I remember the night before Hurricane Andrew on Miami Beach. I wish I had video. My husband and I went out for a ride and drove up and down the streets of South Beach, watched people boarding up, watched a bag lady pushing her cart down the street and I worried how she'd make it through the storm and if we would ever see Miami Beach so beautiful again. One little bump in the track to the South and Andrew veered over Key Biscayne on it's way to Homestead. On Miami Beach we were blasted with hurricane winds, I could hear the sound of the surf in the strongest gusts but our old, big house was fine but a friend woke up a block away to the sight of her neighbors rooftop in her backyard pool. Miami Beach was trashed and it took months to clean it up. But that feeling before a storm of not knowing what it will look like after the storm is real. And, you relive memories the way I relive standing on the boardwalk on Miami Beach behind the hotel I got married in years earlier with my best friend feeling the wind hours before we locked our doors and hunkered down for Andrew. My five year old daughter ran in circles pretending to be an airplane with her arms wide out trying to imiiate the sound of the approaching hurricane as the surf looked stormy, dark and sea foam littered the beach. 



Well hasn't 2020 been intresting? Next name up is J for Josephine. We had a strong cold front or trof that dipped down and grabbed Isaias on August 3rd. What else is next? Check out the graph below and remember we are really just starting the hurricane season so there's plenty more in store where Isaias came from and soon we will have a Major Hurricane. So if you haven't prepared for the Hurricane Season  already please do it now. 

Besos BobbiStorm 
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Ps... this is why people go to Ocean Isle Beach, wouldn't you?















posted by BobbiStorm @ 10:57 AM

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