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, October 30, 2018
Hurricane Oscar Out in the Middle of the Atlantic Dancing with the Front, Going Out to Sea. High Surf for Bermuda. 105 MPH - Cat 2. Wicked Weather in South Tomorrow Again... Tropics and Halloween.
Hurricane Oscar Our October Surprise in the Tropical Atlantic. 8th Hurricane of the 2018 Hurricane Season. Oh....and RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!
Hurricane Oscar formed tonight a bit ahead of the original forecast and has been doing what it wants most of the day. Moving fast to the West, though that is expected to be halted at some point down the road before being swung back out to sea. It is also forecast to become a 100 MPH Hurricane and personally I think that may be conservative but as always time will tell. The advisory is below along with some discussion worth noting and the ever popular "cone" that shows the track. To be honest this was a done deal since earlier this evening. I've had one eye on Oscar and one eye on the Red Sox the last few hours. Oscar became very photogenic after a difficult beginning as it evolved into a hurricane.
UPDATED! Tropical Storm ---Subtropical Storm Oscar in the Atlantic Forecast to be Tropical Storm Oscar Anger & Hate, Mail Bombers, Pittsburgh Shooting. October...
Quick Midnight Update.
Red Sox beat the Dodgers.
Oh you probably knew that.
What you probably don't know is...
...I had an Uncle named Oscar.
And he was one of my all time favorite people..
I find it a big amusing to have a Tropical Storm Oscar.
My uncle Oscar gave me a strong sense of myself and more so a belief in my own abilities. He insisted I could do anything I wanted. I was smart and beautiful and anything I wanted to achieve I could. He was basically a 2nd father as we lived next door to my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and partner in crime my cousin Brian. Wow did we get in trouble when we were little. Good times. Uncle Oscar could play the guitar, sing beautifully and talk on history and politics. He was a successful lawyer, head of the steering committee for the Democratic Party (so I grew up literally in political meetings being babysat) and he just had the best essence of almost anyone I knew growing up though I was also a bit partial to my Aunt Ada. He was an Old Florida Boy meaning he went to the University of Florida but more so he knew weather in an intrinsic way as he went fishing, grew tomatoes and knew when the wind was going to blow like a hurricane. He was a small child in the 1926 hurricane and remembered how they clustered together waiting out the storm. The story I tell of the people who rode out the 1926 Hurricane in a Funeral Home built up on on a hill (yes a hill in Miami... it wasn't much of a hill but it had elevation) and people made it through the storm safe. Except the few who insisted in driving across the bridge into downtown to check on businesses and friends who were swept away in a storm surge. Old Florida boys know hurricanes have a second act... an eye but most of the newcomers to Florida didn't know that. When Uncle Oscar told a story you could hear the wind blowing the way it did in a hurricane. He and his father were President of Beth David Synagogue in Miami; some of my earliest memories are watching him in the Synagogue speaking on stage. In my darkest moments when life seemed impossible and there was no way out of bad situations I could always hear Uncle Oscar telling me that I could do anything I really wanted to... if only I could turn back time. But alas time marches on but the memories remain.
He'd sing Granada ... the UF Fight Song and he'd sing Blue Spanish Eyes..
So congratulations Tropical Storm Oscar for becoming a real Tropical Storm.
Most of all I remember when he came back from a case in New York excited because he saw Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof. He bought the soundtrack and he'd sing and move in my mind way better than anyone named Zero could ever sing. Years later I found out on some DNA website I'm distantly related to Sholom Aleichem which makes total sense in ways I don't want to explain here and now. So here's to Uncle Oscar... and the beauty of music to transcend any sad news or bad times.
If I could use a time machine he's one of the few people I'd want to go back to... a few others.
Update tomorrow on Tropical Storm Oscar and worth mentioning that... the flow from the GOM is still strong so if any front flops out and falls apart it needs to be watched.
* * *
Cone...
Discussion interesting.
It treats the quick Westward movement as an oddity.
I'm glad to be able to write about Subtropical Storm Oscar out in the Atlantic not threatening anyone but threatening to become Tropical Storm Oscar soon. He's fun to watch out there spinning, evolving as all the atmospheric powers that be fight for control in the Atlantic in October. Cold fronts are on the move and yet the tropics aren't finished. When you add tropical heat into an explosive set up you end up with sometimes larger than expected hurricanes in odd places or Cold Fronts that have tropical moist energy connecting from the Gulf of Mexico across the Gulf Stream and up into New England. In a little while I'm going to watch the World Series. Kind of happy to have missed last night's 18 Inning Game I'd have been exhausted. I was offline for the Jewish Sabbath, asleep in my bed dreaming of hurricanes and snowstorms. I'm teasing. I rarely dream of hurricanes; sometimes but rarely.
Some thoughts on what happened today in Pittsburgh and the Mail Bomber from Miami. Several people have asked me on my thoughts so these are my thoughts. Feel free to ignore them and check back tomorrow when I'll be talking on weather again.
* * *
On a personal level obviously I am Jewish and I did hear about an "Active Shooter in Pittsburgh" today as I left the house to walk over to the synagogue. My first thought was the Rabbi in our synagogue who is from Pittsburgh would probably be upset when he heard as he has many family members there and he is one of the world's biggest Pittsburgh Steeler fans. Much later in the day I found out from someone that the shooting had been at a synagogue during a Bris where a baby is named and I didn't mention it to my husband so he could keep his peace of calm mind until sundown and the news would come on and we'd hear the details. A bris for a family is what a Christening is to most people who are Christian and have that custom; it is one of the biggest, happiest moments in the family's life regarding a newborn, baby boy. Girl's have their own naming in a synagogue and then a big party is held to celebrate the new life. So there were so many layers of horror to this story beyond just the regular hate filled man who runs into a church or a synagogue thinking he's taking matters into his hands and decides to kill. As horrible as it was in Charleston for me to think of people sitting at a table in a bible class with a stranger they let in and welcomed and then he turned his anger onto them using a gun. In Pittsburgh the bris was in process, the family gathered around a newborn baby swaddled in blankets to be entered officially into the covenant of the Jewish People and some Nazi loving, Jew hating man runs in with hate and a gun.
This is not about guns. I'm sorry but it's about hate. I studied history in depth and a whole lot of depressing Jewish history though my degree is in International Relations which sadly is rife with hate and way before they had rifles they took Jews and chased them into the town's synagogue with torches and set the the synagogue on fire burning down the synagogue and the Jews both babies and their grandparents. Be it blood libels or the Crusades or just some Cossacks who got drunk and decided to go have "fun" with the Jews and start a Pogrom. Hate isn't just about Jews as Belfast Ireland was rocked for years with hate between religious groups and Americans systematically killed off the Native Americans to move across the nation and make it their own nation. Sorry to get political here but it's true; yes I know they fought back but as we know from F Troop the White Man eventually beat out the Indians. In Africa and China and every country on the Planet someone has fought someone from another tribe for whatever reason be it access to the better farmland or to kill off their young warriors. Hate and anger kill.
And this is NOT a Pro Trump comment but he was ostracized for saying there should be guns or a guard but in many synagogues I know there are men who are designated gun carriers in case there is a problem. And kudos to the police who got to the Temple in ONE MINUTE. Wow.
What bothers me most is that 3 days ago in Cary North Carolina a suburb not far from Raleigh someone plasted a neighborhood with flyers from a Nazi group looking for new recruits and specifically mentioning "immigrants" and the Jews and apparently the shooter was obsessed with that exact language over the last few days before deciding to take matters into his own hands. I find it hard to believe it's a coincidence and not a fire that was flamed with hate by materials read online by this same organization pushing their agenda under the guise of Freedom of Speech.
So sorry for a political discussion tonight but many of my friends have asked me on my thoughts. My daughter's best friend recently moved to Pittsburgh and his niece's teacher was going to the Bris and they had thought of joining her. They heard before they left about the shooting. My Rabbi who grew up 2 blocks from that synagogue is probably in shock and heartbroken. My daughter who has been there says it's one of the most beautiful synagogues she's ever been in and she's been in a lot. Yes, I'm Jewish. My daughter-in-law Kristin is not Jewish and we are close and we talk a lot. We actually talked quietly once on the reality that my beautiful granddaughter Olivia could be in danger if some synagogue or Jewish school was attacked as it was just after some terrorist attack at a Jewish place for no other reason than.. it was a Jewish place. She expressed the fact that it had occurred to her in a sad tone that inherent threat is always there. Scary huh? To have to think on these things. Sad but true. A part of life. I'm not shocked, but I'm sad and I'd rather write on weather and Oscar.
The green by Mar-Len is NMB High School.
His house was by the r in Mar.
The house he grew up in...
Most crazy is that the mail bomber in Miami was raised and grew up in a house directly across the street from my best friend, actually both my best friends lived on that block. I know that house, that block like the back of my hand. He played soccer on the field at the end of the block by the high school. He attended North Miami Beach High School where one of my son's graduated from and several of my kids attended as he did JFK Middle School where four of my kids attended school before I moved them back to a Jewish Day School on Miami beach that after 911 kept a police car outside in front of the school all year as the school was seen as a target. The mail bomb suspect attended elementary school in the elementary school where I used to substitute teach Sabal Palm Elementary. You can see all the schools I mentioned there. In Miami we joke that all stories have a Florida angle. Not sure if the one in Pittsburgh does but the mail bomber story did for sure and it was very close to home for me.
Why are some people so filled with hate?
Hate comes in Pro Trump and Anti Trump packages.
Hate comes in liberal venues and conservative venues.
Hate is projected at people for color, race, religion and political persuasion.
I'm tired of hate.
Study International Relations .......trust me it's all about hate. Or about the desire to have better farming regions or a warm water port.
Glad I'm obsessed with weather and sports and astrology and dance and music and all the things that keep my world spinning. And, yeah a break once a week on the Jewish Sabbath is always nice but sadly when that bubble is broken you often come out to hear about something not so happy. Years ago I'd always be afraid to turn on CNN just after Shabbos to see if a plane fell out of a sky or an earthquake destroyed California while I was in my happy bubble of calm and peace.
Today people celebrating a baby's birth in a place of worship in what should have been a peaceful, happy bubble had their peace destroyed. I was in the Synagogue with friends celebrating a friend's birthday together with others.
Hope and pray your world is not shattered by crazy mail bombers or people grabbing a gun to shoot your loved ones and may you be safe from crazy, hate filled people who decide to drive over people with a truck at a carnival or a bike rally. Stay safe, safe well and stay happy.
Besos Bobbistorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter.
Ps. Yes I am Jewish but I'm actually a Jewish Conch as my family lived in Key West back in the late 1800s. We go way back in Florida before the City of Miami even existed. So I'll leave this with their favorite saying.
Updated 5 PM Tropical Storm Michael Moving Through the Carolinas on His Way Back to the Sea... Atlantic Ocean and a Cone That Goes towards England. 50% Orange Circle Where Michael Formed in Caribbean. The Hurricane Season Isn't Over Yet.
This mass of rain is about to move through.
High winds.
Power outages up from when it moved through to the West.
Look at that wind history.
Amazing.
Tropical Storm Michael tapping into moisture again.
I'll do a full update either later tonight..
Or tomorrow.
I want to watch what happens...
...as we are under special warnings.
Michael...Still a Tropical Storm.
Awesome day in Raleigh.
Later...stay safe.
Besos BobbiStorm
Ps... Death toll is rising, even in NC a tree fell on a man in a car.
What I am watching while I type this post.
Drone video from Mexico Beach.
Just gone....
...in places where storm surge slammed onshore.
Why we beg people to leave and evacuate.
There is no fighting that sort of deadly power.
It's why we call it Ground Zero.
Where a storm surge hits land.
Storm Surge from a strong Category 4.
So where are we now...
..other watching in awe of the power of Michael.
Let's start at the beginning.
In the 5 day we have a 50% chance of development.
The zone is the area that brought you Michael.
It won't be "Michael" but it could be Oscar.
Nadine is out by Africa supposedly a "fish storm"
Leslie is still here after all this time.
Michael is over the Carolinas.
That NE at 21 MPH will increase in forward speed.
Statistics.
Michael one with "The Front"
The front that lifted him... pulled him North.
A strong early October Cold Front.
A strong October Hurricane.
This relates.
The set up called for this to happen.
That's why I wrote about it in July and August.
All September I said "a system riding a cold front"
I'm not a seer... it's a pattern.
A meteorological pattern.
The pattern called for this to happen.
Michael embedded in The Front.
Below shows concerns on where I live.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Yes took things in from the balcony...
I have batteries left over from Florence if power goes out.
Candles, canned food if I lose power...
...better now with Michael than Florence.
Cool weather pushes in behind The Front.
Look at those temperatures.
40s at night on Friday.
After Wilma in Miami it was easier than...
...after Andrew on Miami Beach.
Hurricanes that ride a front...
...flip the switch and turn the cold air on.
Again hurricanes help move air around the atmosphere.
That is why they exist they transport energy.
Where does Michael go down the road?
It's a long, long road.
Where does Michael go today?
Over my head... over the Carolinas and Virginia.
In Panama Beach there's an Air Force Base.
That's a fighter jet flipped upside down.
Michael knocked a train off it's tracks there as well.
It slammed through a bank and didn't look back.
A well built bank.
But when the wind gets inside...
..it rips everything apart.
And he's still going strong.
Not a hurricane, but less than a day after landfall.
He's moving towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Sniffing fumes of more moisture.
Watch him go...
Here in Raleigh I'm waiting to see what I will see.
If anything happens I'll post here...
...and of course on Twitter.
@bobbistorm on Twitter
So read my thoughts and think on what I said.
And, remember that the Hurricane Season is not over.
It's a busy hurricane season...
..and it came alive late in the season.
As for me...
Still gathering day and processing the data.
Michael was one for the history books.
Also one for meteorologists to study.
In Raleigh we have various warnings on the weather.
Michael and "The Front" are coming through today.
Rarely does Raleigh get real weather.
The problem with that is......
...when we do it makes National News.
Yeah, it's a huge hill hard to see how high.
It glazed over immediately and became ice.
A sheet of ice under falling snow.
What Raleigh really looks like in the snow is below.
Raleigh can be a beautiful place to live.
But got to tell you it's a little boring.
Rarely snows.
Hurricanes don't make it inland.
It's a Season's Lover's Dream.
Long Spring, Long Fall.
Today we are supposed to get weather...
...from Michael and "The Front"
No one wants Michael...
...but everyone wants "The Front"
The views from the Florida Panhandle are stunning.
But what is to be expected from a REAL Hurricane.
Not one of those lopsided tropical storms.
Or your typical barely a hurricane.
The view is the same as of Andrew.
There isn't much I can add today to what happened yesterday. I'm sure I'll update later today and write more. It's a big, huge mess. In some places it's just a mess, but in other places it's devastation. People who went through Michael in Panama City ...they won't want to hear about how people in Tallahassee went through there as the damage is not comparable. Much the way people in Homestead didn't want to hear about how bad Andrew was in Hialeah and Coral Gables. ln truth Coral Gables is a beautiful city filled with more trees than most people usually see in the "Miami Area" and those oaks and hardwoods that make Coral Gables so beautiful were ripped to shreds. People do love their trees. Miamians love their palm trees, Carolinians love their pine trees. No one likes to see them ripped to shreds, but it pales in comparison to a flooded city or a town totally ripped apart by a strong Category 4 hurricane.
Love that when you put in any place on the planet into Google.
And it shows if there is a Hurricane Warning.
Awesome really.
Hurricane Michael damage below "Panama City"
Hurricane Andrew damage below.
Hurricane Andrew had stronger winds.
Hurricane Michael had lower barometric pressure.
I would venture to say Hurricane Andrew was stronger in different ways and the damage was more intense when you realize in Miami most homes are built to codes with construction and in most parts of the Panhandle you have homes built to less codes and the homes are more wooden construction. The truth is every intense hurricane is different in intricately different ways. Some have little eddies of crazy wind carving out atmospheric rivers of damage and others are steady, solid bulks of hurricane force winds swirling in a more predictable manner. Some carry huge risks for tornadoes, especially later in the season as they tend to hook up with cold fronts and the tornadoes happen far from the center. Some hurricanes have all their wind in one round, neat center circulating fast around a cloudless eye and a bit further out it's all tropical storm force winds and squalls. And often until it makes landfall we just aren't sure how it will play out. Yes, storm surge is easy to forecast for a small narrow barrier island. But not everything is so simple and even landfall is hard to figure especially with Major Hurricanes where the eye sometimes wobbles within a general track and often the storm comes in parallel to the coast as Charley did or David did so every small variation in the track can mean a huge difference as to who gets landfall.
Yes, this hurricane formed under strong shear and that's rare but I've seen it before. Yes, Florence punched into dry air the whole way at a latitude that would not support that sort of development especially with SAL everywhere and yet she became a Major Hurricane in her own right in "negative conditions" ....so think of Albert Edison and how a child who could barely make it through school was able to create something that none of us can live without today. Mark Zuckerberg was never thought of as a "friendly" guy, not popular by any means yet he made a fortune and developed a social media platform that is based on being "friends" and being social. Hurricanes defy the rules sometimes and Major Hurricanes defy the rules in major ways. That's where we are today.
I wrote part of this post while talking to my son Moe. It's good to know my in-laws down in Tallahassee are good but their beautiful area took a beating. Nothing like Mexico Beach but trees are down and the power is out and it's a huge mess. My daughter-in-law Kristin is from there and we have become close as a family; I really like her mother a lot.. about as much as I like her and my granddaughter Olivia. Families expand with love over time. Her mother asked me to go back with her for Thanksgiving last year after the wedding in St. George Island, but I had to go back to Miami as I was driving back with my daughter and my grandson Judah; didn't want them alone in the car as it's a long drive. In Miami I had an awesome Thanksgiving with my daughter-in-law Rachel's family that is Cuban where I got to have Flan as well as incredibly delicious food with a ton of kids, relatives and dogs running around everywhere. Where will I be this Thanksgiving? Not sure. New York or Raleigh, probably Raleigh.
I love writing this blog. I love my kids. I love the stupid pine trees that are beginning to sway in the breeze off and on more on now than off. And, hopefully Raleigh will be okay and I'll go to the NC State Fair next week.
Stay tuned. Stay safe. Michael will be gone tomorrow. But his ugly legacy will live on for a long time while the Florida Panhandle and it's beautiful waterfront property tries to pick up the pieces.
There has been no video from St. George Island.
The one house that shows a storm surge is on the Bay.
As for me.. I'm in Raleigh.
Really.
Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter.
Ps... It's funny my son Moe was trying to find information on St. George Island an interesting way I wouldn't have thought of... Moe is one of those kids who had to learn things his own way as school was not his thing; he has a bit of ADD as a few of my kids do and he found ways to work around the system and survive and thrive. Kids who don't follow rules well when young don't do well in school and kids who want to do other things than sit in a boring class find ways to do other things. I have a touch of ADD but it never bothered my school learning, I thrive in a classroom he thrives out in the world. So he was going through Facebook looking for Facebook Live Videos of people who lived in Panama City and St. George. He found great videos with live time information. We are all different and that's a great idea. I wouldn't have thought about that ... even though I'm prone to do Facebook Live when out somewhere new or if something is happening. Note his name starts with a M like Michael and Mitch and Matthew :) He told me if I lost power in Raleigh we should drive down to him and his family in Miami; that's Moe but it's going to be in the 40s here this week and the NC State Fair is opening soon! Wow. I'll update later in the day. Thanks for reading and for all the support and kind words yesterday on Twitter.
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
