Posted on 08/26/2011 1:53:13 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Beaufort, N.C.
Against predictions, hurricane Irene lost strength Friday afternoon, now registering as a weakening Category 2 hurricane with little chance of revival before it hits North Carolina on Saturday. While Irene's wind speeds dropped to about 100 miles per hour, the risks for inland flooding remained high, with the storm expected to drop as many as 8 inches of rain on water-logged parts of the mid-Atlantic and New England.
“With its eyewall collapsed and just 24 more hours over water before landfall, it is unlikely Irene will have time to build a new eyewall and intensify,” writes meteorologist Jeff Masters on Wunderground.com. “The storm is too large to weaken quickly, and the best forecast is that Irene will be a Category 2 hurricane at landfall in North Carolina on Saturday, and a rapidly weakening Category 1 hurricane at its second landfall in New England on Sunday.”
The storm's massive 290-mile breadth, however, will mean an oversized storm surge in many coastal areas, including parts of the Northeast, Mr. Masters writes. The combination of a new moon high tide and a possible 10-foot storm surge means North Carolina faces the greatest threat of flooding. Major wind damage remains likely especially for coastal Carolina and the Outer Banks. Much of the East Coast remains at risk for flooding and power outage.
Because of the storm's unusual path and concerns about flooding, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered first-ever evacuations for low-lying parts of the city Friday and a shutdown of the city's mass transit system starting on Saturday.
On Friday, Irene sent 22-foot offshore waves toward North Carolina's Onslow Bay. Massive rain bands pounded Beaufort, N.C., which may be the site of the landfall of the storm's remaining center core.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
They have a 24/7 news-cycle to fill, and if it bleeds it leads.
I hope it falls apart. We can’t afford it.
Irene = fail so far
Oops! Looks like the cable “news” channels better start looking for something to talk about this weekend. This is going to blow an “unexpected” hole in their expected ratings.
GOLFING
But but but Zero has been out there screeching about what an historic storm this was going to be, causing panic in the streets!
Once again, Zero destroys whatever he touches.
Don and Irene, a perfect couple. :-)
The only good news failure of the entire o-POS administration.
It is traveling at 14 MPH depending where you get hit it could be a three.
SCM wanted Obie to have a “leadership moment”. Ain’t gonna happen. Hopefully it will continue to diminish and look like an early season nor’easter by the time it gets farther up the coast.
The wind may not be as bad; but Irene is going to dump a LOT of water on the northeast, and the ground is quite wet.
“Obie wants to play Moses.”
Actually, there’s little doubt Obama would have LOVED a disaster so that people could compare his adept handling of it to the ineptitude rampant in the response to Katrina (little of which actually was due to GWB, but most of which nevertheless was blamed on him).
Even if Irene turns out to be a pipsqueak compared to what was projected even just 24 hours ago, rest assured Obama will take every opportunity to boast how much worse things would have been if he weren’t in charge.
A lot of poor disadvantaged “urban” (wink, wink) youths with iPhones are going to be very disappointed at the missed opportunity to go British this weekend.
Some of those places could use about 40 days and 40 nights of the wet stuff...
I’ll bet there are going to be a lot of broken hearts out there as their “dream” of a big screen TV for the upcoming football season starts to fizzle.
He scared the bed wetters and the MSM for a few days.
Looks like I’m going to win another bet. I bet a co-worker
every year on the yearly huricane predictions by the so-called scientists. I bet they will be wrong, she bets they will be right. I’ve won every year. We also bet on “Irene”, naturaly I bet the predictions would be wrong.
I have zero faith in weather/climate predictions, they are ALWAYS wrong!
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Osama’s body washed up on the beach while Barry was down there with his staff up in the air calming the winds. LOL!!! The way this country is these days, nothing would surprise me.
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