Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VII

NOAA - NHC ^ | 28 August 2005 | NOAA - NHC

[NautiNurse]

Extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the North Central Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans metro area. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin conceded that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport. At this hour, people are still filing into the Superdome after security screening for weapons and contraband. National Guard have brought in 360,000 MRE (meals ready to eat) to feed the estimated 30,000 storm refugees in the Superdome.

The following links are self-updating:

Public Advisory Currently published every 3 hours 5A, 8A, 11A, 2P, etc. ET
NHC Discussion Published every six hours 6A, 11A, 6P, 11P
Three Day Forecast Track
Five Day Forecast Track
Navy Storm Track
Katrina Track Forecast Archive Nice loop of each NHC forecast track for both three and five day
Forecast Models
Alternate Hurricane Models via Skeetobite
Bouy Data Louisiana/Mississippi
Buoy Data Florida

Images:

New Orleans/Baton Rouge Experimental Radar Subject to delays and outages - and well worth the wait

Mobile Long Range Radar Loop

New Orleans/Baton Rouge Radar

Ft. Polk, LA Long Range Radar Loop

Northwest Florida Long Range Radar

Storm Floater IR Loop
Storm Floater Still & Loop Options
Color Enhanced IR Loop

Other Resources:

Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VI
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part V
Hurricane Katrina, Live Thread, Part IV
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part III
Katrina Live Thread, Part II
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part I
Tropical Storm 12

Hurricane Wind Risk Very informative tables showing inland wind potential by hurricane strength and forward motion
Central Florida Hurricane Center
New Orleans Web Cams Loads of web cam sites here. The sites have been very slow due to high traffic
New Orleans Music Online Couldn't resist--love that jazz
Golden Triangle Weather Page Nice Beaumont weather site with lots of tracks and graphics
Hurricane City
Crown Weather Tropical Website Offers a variety of storm info, with some nice track graphics

Live streaming:

Fully-linked version of the live feeds (just in case a few people don't want to first open up WMP to cut-and-paste) -

WWL-TV/DT New Orleans (WMP) - mms://beloint.wm.llnwd.net/beloint_wwltv
WVTM-TV/DT Birmingham (WMP) - mms://a1256.l1289835255.c12898.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/

1256/12898/v0001/reflector:35255
WDSU-TV/DT New Orleans (WMP) - http://mfile.akamai.com/12912/live/reflector:38202.asx
Hurricane City (Real Player) - http://hurricanecity.com/live.ram
ABCNews Now (Real Player) - http://reallive.stream.aol.com/ramgen/redundant/abc/now_hi.rm
WKRG-TV/DT

Mobile (WMP) - mms://wmbcast.mgeneral.speedera.net/wmbcast

.mgeneral/wmbcast_mgeneral_aug262005_1435_95518 WDSU-TV/DT New Orleans via WESH-TV/DT Orlando - http://mfile.akamai.com/12912/live/reflector:38843.asx

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

[NautiNurse]

you are bad! Tell me honestly...have you tried nutria yet?

[silentknight]

915 mb now!

[BurbankKarl]

At 2 a.m., the center of Hurricane Katrina was about 70 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and 130 miles south-southeast of New Orleans, moving north at 12 mph.

Maximum sustained winds are near 155 mph with higher gusts, making Katrina a strong Category 4 hurricane. The National Hurricane Center warns that while the storm's strength may fluctuate before landfall, it's still expected to be a strong Category 4 or Category 5 storm.

During the past hour, a wind gust of 83 mph was reported at a buoy just east of the Chandeleur Islands, a gust of 75 mph was reported at Grand Isle, and a 60 mph gust was reported in New Orleans.

At 1:16 a.m., the National Weather Service reported that Katrina would push tropical storm force winds north of Lake Pontchartrain and along the Mississippi coast by daybreak, with hurricane-force winds spreading from the coast into the New Orleans metropolitan area by daybreak and onto the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain by mid-morning.

[Flyer]

"HAL, coffee, please. Sweet and Low and milk"

[Iowa Granny]

Sorry I missed you.

I laughed about your kids calling and worrying. Now they know how you felt on Saturday Nights when they were late getting home.

[Pirogue Captain]

"No it just bothers me when people that are supposed to conservatives become reactionary and alarmists. For some reason there is this extreme need to blame somebody for this. I never understood why liberals always have to find someone to blame when something bad happens but now I'm starting to realize that it's not just a liberal reaction."



-------


I'm not sure there is a blame game going on. Maybe it is more of a desire for accountability. Republicans generally have higher standards, and when something goes wrong, they want to know why. I read earlier in one of these threads that while Mayor Nagin is a Democrat (which all major players in Orleans Parish are), he was a Bush supporter. I can't vouch for that last part. It may be true.

As someone who has been watching the local political scene in New Orleans for a short while, they all had their hands full trying to better the school system, and trying to get a grip on the out of control crime, that was certainly ruining the city. The city was losing on the order of 5,000 residents a year. The criminals had certainly taken over.

[spunkets]

The water on the edge of the 'cane's perimeter is already high. It will be rising in NO as the wind speed there picks up. Last I heard the eye was moving N. at 10MPH on that 90 longitude line.

[Thinkin' Gal]

The sick part is, they didn't make any effort to bus these folks anywhere, save to the "last resort" location at a late hour. If the Superdome was the last resort, where was the first resort?

So what if a lot of them refuse to leave or decide to wait until the last minute. At least there should have been buses available, making the rounds at designated pick up points starting on Friday. For a freak emergency crisis like this, I don't know what problem some people have with such government assistance. Yeah, even for people who are none-too-bright. If they refuse to avail themselves to it, that's one thing. But for leaders to have no plan or to bumble with indecision, that's just immoral. Some people need to be led, that's why leaders should be leading at a time like this. For God's sakes it's people's lives at stake.

[NautiNurse]

Eyewall open in that last radar image.

[newzjunkey]

I'll tell you some funny stories one of these days.

Sounds good. Have a good nap.

[LibSnubber]

Well said and thank you for all you've done. Being able to be here with FRiends has helped me keep my sanity, not to mention get info well ahead of anywhere else.

Trying to catch up on what's going on with the storm. Just woke up. Hubby had first shift, now it's my turn.

[newzjunkey]

Is your stream of the WWL feed having audio feedback-like problems?

[adam_az]

"you are bad! Tell me honestly...have you tried nutria yet?"

No nutria in Arizona...

....and they're not kosher, but I might try one if it looked like it was cooked up real good, anyway. :)

[kayak]

Something that many people don't think about is that the recipes, jokes, and other off-topic subjects keep the thread bumped to the top so more people will see it. This is true of any "disaster" thread, especially breaking news ones. The lighter comments don't reflect poorly on those posting them ... they serve several very useful purposes.

[eldoradude]

Or they could catch a Nutria as it floats by, and eat the sucker.

Eating wet dead democrats could give you series dain bramage...

[jeffers]

"Repeating the 2 am CDT position...28.2 N... 89.6 W. Movement
toward...north near 12 mph. Maximum sustained
winds...155 mph. Minimum central pressure... 910 mb."

I posted a new situation map. The red and green dots are position plots, and the blue line is the Forecast Discussion projected track, red lines are the outer boundaries of the eyewall. Maximum surge will probably be along a band about three quarters as wide as the eyewall, measured from the right side.

Storm center at 0200 is 77 miles from the shore as measured along the forecast track. Landfall looks to be Washington Lake (south of Port Sulphur) at 0830, presuming the current forward velocity of 12 mph continues.

I'm not predicting how this is going to happen. The landmasses may prevent significant surge from entering Lake P, and then again they may not. Just going to have to wait and see.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y138/jeffers_mz/Katrina/2amplots.jpg

[ChefKeith]

Try this one

Click and drag the mouse to make a zoom box.

The arrows are 1 hour of storm travel time split into 20 mins at the little boxes.

[LibSnubber]

"I read earlier in one of these threads that while Mayor Nagin is a Democrat (which all major players in Orleans Parish are), he was a Bush supporter."

I can't help you confirm that. However, I do remember that Nagin backed Bobby Jindal and not Blanco for Gov. He caught a lot of flack for that.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Ought to be doing that myself, but I can't let go yet...

[AntiGuv]

I wonder if this hurricane might cut an inlet across Plaquemines Parish and create a new island out of the southern tip.