Hurricane Milton becomes second-fastest storm to reach Category 5 status
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Storm surge is a direct result of low pressure moving across open water which tends to make the water rise. Wind has little to do with the height of storm surge and more to do with the geography of the land and where and how it meets the water, Add in the tides and it's all physics. The storm surge is now forecasted to be 10 to 20 feet above sea level. Anyone who doesn't realize this is a catastrophe aiming right for them better put their affairs in order.
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You speak as if 'liberals' as a group feel that way which is nonsense. Some sick fucks feel that way and it doesn't come from any kind of politics. It comes from a sick mind.
Conservatives whining about every little 'hurtful words' is tiresome. . Grow the fuck up.
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Hears to hoping some of the forecasters on TV and the internet are correct in that intense wind shear in the atmosphere knocks it down a few notches as it approaches the Fla. coast. Its still gonna make a mess though. :/
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And if anyone's feeling sensitive about a particular ideological group being judgmental assholes about climate disaster, I encourage them to maybe take a critical look at their own record, and whether they've indulged in any snotty comments about "forest management" or the like when others have suffered. Grudges like that are rarely ex nilhio.
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Indeed! Hope those $750 short-term payments for immediate necessities come in handy, while vastly larger payouts for specific assistance are still in the works.
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That's true -- there are SoCal cities that are full of reinforced concrete fauxdobe buildings -- but as Surfside shows, reinforced concrete has serious issues in saltwater environments. Even salt spray in the air will eventually trigger irreparable spalling as the salt soaks into the concrete and rusts the rebar.
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It is. After the past couple of years, it is sad and weird and infuriating, but in no way surprising, either. It's genuinely hard to feel concern, empathy, solidarity for folks who don't actually feel any for you. But if conservatives are bewildered about where that came from, they need to spend some time considering who they vote for, what kinds of policies they support, and what they've supported.
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More correctly: "Get ready for those $750 emergency assistance payouts, Tampa! Then come back the next day and fill out some paperwork for actual damages and needs, and we'll go from there!"
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Since they openly want to kill some of us I think that reaction is understandable.
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Pilots at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder, CO, used to (and may still) fly gliders into thunderstorms. One of their ships was a Schweizer 2-32 that was instrumented, and its pilots had some interesting stories. That ship came out of one storm looking like someone angry had gone over every square foot of every surface on the plane with a hammer. Hail scares even the big boys, or should.
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Climate change is a threat multiplier. It puts our thumb on the scales, it weights the dice, it fiddles with the slot machine. If flooding is rare, intensified storms and shifted precipitation regimes make it more likely. If flooding is severe, higher water vapor transport rates make it worse. If a drought is long, AGW makes it longer and hotter. If a hurricane is intense, a warmer sea surface intensifies it faster and to a greater magnitude. If a wildfire starts, higher vapor pressure deficit and lower fuel moisture makes it expand faster, burn hotter, damage the soil more. If it's already summer in the Middle East, higher wet bulb temperatures stress human health more and kill more of the young, old, and vulnerable. If an invasive species prefers cool, wet, late-winter conditions, it will germinate earlier than native species can, thereby gaining competitive advantage.
In all these cases, everything that did happen, could happen. You can always come up snake eyes when you throw a pair of dice. But when the dice are loaded, and you come up snake eyes six times out of ten, it's very silly assume the dice aren't loaded just because snake eyes are possible one in 36 rolls. And just because Asheville has flooded in the past doesn't mean these floods were of a normal and expected volume, intensity, and cause.
And that kind of reasoning is how carnies take their marks for everything they're carrying. The number of people who are otherwise smart and capable who resort to carny mark reasoning when they can't admit they were wrong is startling.
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One hail storm earlier this year did over two billion dollars in damage to Denver. Didn't even make the news outside Colorado.
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As a scientist, which is to say someone who is very accustomed to finding out he's wrong or being told so and having to suck that up and accept new facts, it is fucking wild to me how many people will go to lengths like this simply to avoid having to admit they're wrong.
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The storm surge is a wave that gets pushed up for days, including right now with the storm at or near peak intensity. Weakening at the last minute still leaves it a very large wave.
And while the peak winds would fall, the area of high winds would increase, according to the current forecast. Less scouring of the earth in one spot, more places badly impacted. It’s not really a win either way (not that we get to choose).
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We can't grow biomass fast enough.
If biomass grew fast enough we'd first convert biomass into carbon neutral biofuels for our needs and we'd bury the excess biomass for carbon sequestration.
And all would be peachy.
But as it stands we can only cover a bit of our needs with biomass.
So we'll probably usawhatever sustainable biomass we can grow to produce carbon neutral biofuels and prioritize using those biofuels for applications like aviation and energy storage.
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Congress would have to meet to fund that larger assistance package. Johnson is refusing to do that before the election. So, $750 has to keep people going for at least another month. The GOP clearly is hoping that by not funding disaster relief in North Carolina and now Florida, voters will blame the current president’s party.
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Who here has "political opponents"? I'm not running for any office.
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Same. I really just want to be left alone. To the extent I have "opponents" it's because one party really, really wants to mess with my life.
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Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
Strom surge is mostly wind driven. From NOAA:
You don't want to be on the right hand side (relative to forward motion) of hurricanes. That is where the storm surge is going to happen at landfall and in general, for various reasons, the right front quadrant is has the strongest winds, too.
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Nothing like going toe to toe with actual reality to find out that, just because your idea is logical and gets you where you want to go, does not mean that it is correct. Then the intelligent change their hypothesis, and the fools go on ignoring the data.
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If that was satire, you do it poorly.
No, my comment was not whining since my point had an actual premise that focused on a particular set of words. Much like Haitians eating pets, The Right make up shit out of complete bullshit to demonize a group as group behavior. And then whine like little girls when their bullshit is called out and bleating "Why are you so hurtful?" Confronting bigotry is not whining. It's combating potentially dangerous behavior. And I will confront it til my dying breath. Which is not too far off.
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If you're not wrong about half of the time, are you even doing science?
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Sadly, even many scientists and other well-educated people are not at all exempt from this when it comes to their political and economic beliefs.
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* If you are a MAGA true believer, you should stay put, your Guns N' Bibles will save you.
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Your persecution complex is irrelevant. Pack away your strawman and calm down.
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For sure; you and I sometimes bump heads (or just energetically talk past each other), but you are not an "opponent" to me. However, there is a certain movement that is further right than they ought to be for what they call themselves, led by someone who hasn't recieved popular vote, and would happily consider me sub-human for any combination of diagnoses and lifestyle.
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Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
A couple of comments on some posts in this thread that I think are a little off the mark...
Hillsborough (like all of the other big coastal counties in Florida - Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, etc., even Duval) are Blue. Some quite Blue. So a lot of the political discussion above isn't really applicable, to the extent it ever is about an entire population, to the Tamp Bay area. The counties to the North and South are Red but also less populous. And in recent times the state has been close to 50/50 (it went for Obama both times). It used to be Blue.
With respect to emergency management, in my experience Florida and the localities do a good job. There is extensive planning and those plans are generally executed pretty well. The problems tend to come more from the very high number of residents with little to no hurricane experience (and worse, thinking they have it when they don't) either under estimating the danger or panicking. The state emphasizes preparation year-round but most people just don't do it. Going to like a grocery store before a storm is hell and generally unnecessary if you planned properly. There's not much government can do about these things.
As to evacuations. I would never judge anyone's decision on whether and how to evacuate. It's a really difficult decision and if you've never had to do it you may not really be able to appreciate just how difficult it is. But you don't need to "evacuate, evacuate" and the state and counties generally discourage it. The state has extensive evacuation zones and maps and local media will talk about endlessly them and who needs to evacuate as the storm approaches. If you don't need to evacuate you are usually better off not evacuating. And if you do need to evacuate you don't need to evacuate to some far off place but locally if possible (Florida calls this "Evacuation in place"). The best case is to know someone who isn't in an evacuation zone (and that could be only a few miles, or less, away from your house) that you can stay with. One of my cousins lives on the coast in the Tampa area and their house was flooded by Helene. They'd evacuated but only to a friend's house about a mile inland that wasn't in an evacuation zone. They were fine. They are planning to do that again late tomorrow, too, if it looks like it's necessary. And since they are only going a short distance they can go last minute. It's also what I've always done in the major storms I've been through. Shelters are also an option but depending on your circumstances may not be a good option, especially if you're elderly or infirm.
Building code: Since Andrew, Florida has had very strict building codes. There is talk in a number of posts above about wood frame homes... Except for old homes, wood frame homes aren't a thing in Florida. They are all CBS construction with really strict requirements for things like windows and roof attachment. Public schools all look like bomb shelters since they generally have to double as hurricane shelters.
Insurance: I don't know about inland counties but along the coasts windstorm insurance is almost entirely limited to Citizens - the largest insurer in the state. And Citizens has taken to going out of its way to kick people off for any reason they can invent leaving no options at all. (if you've got Citizens you have likely experienced a "surprise" home inspection by a Citizens contract inspector and if you haven't, you likely will.) Private insurers don't provide flood insurance at all and ordinary insurers will try as hard as they can to classify any claims as flood damage so they don't have to pay. They suck.
Hillsborough (like all of the other big coastal counties in Florida - Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, etc., even Duval) are Blue. Some quite Blue. So a lot of the political discussion above isn't really applicable, to the extent it ever is about an entire population, to the Tamp Bay area. The counties to the North and South are Red but also less populous. And in recent times the state has been close to 50/50 (it went for Obama both times). It used to be Blue.
With respect to emergency management, in my experience Florida and the localities do a good job. There is extensive planning and those plans are generally executed pretty well. The problems tend to come more from the very high number of residents with little to no hurricane experience (and worse, thinking they have it when they don't) either under estimating the danger or panicking. The state emphasizes preparation year-round but most people just don't do it. Going to like a grocery store before a storm is hell and generally unnecessary if you planned properly. There's not much government can do about these things.
As to evacuations. I would never judge anyone's decision on whether and how to evacuate. It's a really difficult decision and if you've never had to do it you may not really be able to appreciate just how difficult it is. But you don't need to "evacuate, evacuate" and the state and counties generally discourage it. The state has extensive evacuation zones and maps and local media will talk about endlessly them and who needs to evacuate as the storm approaches. If you don't need to evacuate you are usually better off not evacuating. And if you do need to evacuate you don't need to evacuate to some far off place but locally if possible (Florida calls this "Evacuation in place"). The best case is to know someone who isn't in an evacuation zone (and that could be only a few miles, or less, away from your house) that you can stay with. One of my cousins lives on the coast in the Tampa area and their house was flooded by Helene. They'd evacuated but only to a friend's house about a mile inland that wasn't in an evacuation zone. They were fine. They are planning to do that again late tomorrow, too, if it looks like it's necessary. And since they are only going a short distance they can go last minute. It's also what I've always done in the major storms I've been through. Shelters are also an option but depending on your circumstances may not be a good option, especially if you're elderly or infirm.
Building code: Since Andrew, Florida has had very strict building codes. There is talk in a number of posts above about wood frame homes... Except for old homes, wood frame homes aren't a thing in Florida. They are all CBS construction with really strict requirements for things like windows and roof attachment. Public schools all look like bomb shelters since they generally have to double as hurricane shelters.
Insurance: I don't know about inland counties but along the coasts windstorm insurance is almost entirely limited to Citizens - the largest insurer in the state. And Citizens has taken to going out of its way to kick people off for any reason they can invent leaving no options at all. (if you've got Citizens you have likely experienced a "surprise" home inspection by a Citizens contract inspector and if you haven't, you likely will.) Private insurers don't provide flood insurance at all and ordinary insurers will try as hard as they can to classify any claims as flood damage so they don't have to pay. They suck.
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There's someone on Reddit that goes by u/elrondhubbard and I have never been more jealous of a handle.
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Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
How do you know it's not him?
I mean... According to Scientology he was supposed to reincarnate.
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Note that only the "science fiction writer" part sets it aside from other religions in any meaningful way. You say "aliens in DC-8s", I say "world-wide flood". You say "thetans", I say "immortal soul". There is no fundamental difference other than an idiotic veneer of respectability through sheer age.
They are all scams, they are all cults, they all love to dodge taxes, and mostly exist to bilk their followers. Need I remind you, the Roe v Wade repeal is a direct consequence of "Christian" "universities" standing to lose their tax-exempt status over not wanting to desegregate 50-ish years ago.
I have yet to meet an American Evangelical that couldn't do with a heaping helping of Matthew 6 and 7 applied directly to the noggin in stone tablet form.
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