Three years after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, New Orleans is starring down the barrel of another hurricane. The National Huricane Center is frantically trying to predict the path of this tropical storm well before it becomes a monster.
In aviation there’s a saying that planes in a line on radar are called a “string of pearls.” Well, the Gulf and Atlantic have a string of storm pearls.
It has been a relatively quiet season. Tropical Storm Fay came through Florida a couple weeks ago and flooded a lot of places, but I don’t think it killed anyone. Fay and T.S. Edouard did help knock loose the high pressure sitting over Texas and we subsequently got some rain after that.
Not a drop! All we got was a drying 30-40mph wind. Now the air is hot and humid, the grass is brown, and there’s no end in sight to summer.
Oh well.
Today’s picture looks better than yesterday. So now we sit and wait – wait to see how much wind and rain we’ll get. Funny though, how news/rumor of events happening south of here (i.e. the evacuation effort) have spread around today. In the halls, at McDonalds at lunchtime, on the radio, everywhere you turn you get a different version or an updated version. But leave it to the Cajuns to ignore the weather and party on:
In Lafayette, Cajun fest rages on
Inundated with hurricane victims, they celebrate survival
12:00 AM CDT on Monday, September 19, 2005
By GILLIAN FLACCUS / Associated Press
LAFAYETTE, La. – Their homes are bursting with guests. Their schools are overwhelmed. Traffic has been at a standstill for three weeks since thousands of New Orleans hurricane evacuees arrived in search of shelter.But Lafayette, the capital of Cajun country, still knows how to party.Throngs turned out during the weekend for the opening days of the Festivals Acadiens, billed as the largest Cajun festival in the world, in a show of just what joie de vivre means.
Here’s the latest…she’s still coming.
So what is the big deal with Hurricane Rita? It could be the first major hurricane since Alicia in 1983 to hit the Texas coast! And here in the Brazos Valley we will not escape her effects. Of course, it is way too early to know exactly where Rita will strike but the Texas coast looks like a good bet. Based on the latest info, I believe Rita will strike somewhere between Galveston and Matagorda Bay and continue heading north into our backyards. Landfall will occur early Saturday morning. Source: Conley Isom meteorologist at KBTX Channel 3 News
On a personal note, this does not paint a pretty picture for my home and surroundings: there are only 2 trees within hundreds of yards of the house, 1 next to my parking spot, 1 next to my front window. Not good. We’ve gone through TS force winds before (70 mph) and the trees bent, lost leaves, but came back. If we get 80+ mph winds, I fear these trees won’t bounce back.
Until tomorrow or next time.
NOW it’s getting personal Mother Nature! Hurricane Katrina was bad – it killed a thousand plus people, destroyed a few hundred miles of Gulf Coast, disrupted thousands of lives, spiked gas prices – but Hurricane Rita wants to pour salt in the wound and then some.
This is definitely the year of the hurricane – 17 named storms so far and we have 6 more weeks left in the season! Some have suggested the Russians and Japanese are in kahoots to make a weather machine to destroy America.
Secretary Cohen was well-briefed on these weapons and their use by “terrorists” – in this case, the Japanese Yakuza crews who leased large strategic Russian scalar interferometers from the KGB in latter 1989. They have been engineering the weather over North America initially (and in some other places) since then, and have since become the most skilled interferometer operators on the planet. They are also being used as direct protégées by the KGB/FSB, which has moved them into the final Operations Phase of the long asymmetric war against the United States. Source: Scott Stevens (meteorologist) at http://www.weatherwars.info/Katrina.htm
O.K. We all know Hollywood is nuts about weather phenomina especially tornados and hurricanes, but a real-life, still-employed, meteorologist? What’s this world coming to.