Bastardi
Last night we said the veryworst thing that could happen is if the center, the calm center stayed offshore because that would expose the beaches to thehurricane itself which is theeye wall.A lot of people focus on the center of the eye. That is where it is most fascinating for a weatherman but the worst part to the normal human being is what is blowing the roofs off houseS.That is the eye wall.It shows we are at 979, almost down to category two with thepressure.Let's look.You can see that the northernedge of the calm eye is on lanD. That is why the wind isdiminishing. The center is maybe 15 miles offshore but it keeps allowing all of that warm moist air offense the water to comenational eye and keep the eyeintensified. So what we were talking aboutlast night, the worst case scenario . What I want to point out is yousee how this solid land here from which will ming to cape lookout then pamlico sound.The frictional effects of trying to keep the storm offshore, this will just come right up over the island over the next 12 to 24hours and it is that slowmovement that is hid crust.The initial forecast for the first part of the season targeted the central gulf coast. We said september and octoberlook out it is the carolinas.That is what is going on now.I will tell you i hate to be the bearer of bad news here but we have set every 10 or 15 days what will happen next. This is the system northeast ofsan juan is liable to be in thegulf of mexico in five days. Is system right here has all the earmarks of a big, big development perhaps north of san juan by next week at this timE.And given the overall weatherpattern we are going to have tostay on our toes with this whole situation. Our problem with Ophelia and i'm showing enthusiastic, it ismoving northeast and naturally it accelerates out.This trough of she pressurehere, it means it is blocking in the atlantic.So once Ophelia gets by cape hatteras he may start northeastand we may have to deal with this storm hitting cape cod andthe islands friday night intosaturday, perhaps even ashurricane. So that is something we arelooking at right now.We are studying that particularsituation. But over the next 24 hours it is slow crawl right along the outer banks of north carolina and it is a god thing this is no more than a strong category one because things would really getbad. Greta: Joe, thank you. Ophelia is dangerous.People are fleeing but not Lieutenant Young. She chases hurricanes and flew straight into Ophelia and joinsus live on the telephone. When did you go through Ophelia?
Lieutenant Young: HI, greta. Thanks for having me on the show. We were flying it last evening until early this morning.
Greta: How long are you up inthe air flying into Ophelia?
Lieutenant Young: Right around 9 1/2 hours. It was a bit of a short flight because we are doing a rotating our crews in and out so there's someone in the eye of the storm roughly every two hours of the day while it endangers the coast.
Greta: When you say rather short, 9 1/2 that doesn't soundshort to me.
Lieutenant Young: Well, it is about a 16-hour day with 12 to 15 hours in the storm environment.
Greta: So, how was the flight?
Lieutenant Young: It wasn't too bad. We went in there thinking it was a tropical storm. The national hurricane center had predicted it to intensify quickly so away got there and confirmed that it was indeed a hurricane. And it remained for the entirety of the flighT.
Greta: Describe what it is likeflying noofment what do you see, how much do you shake, rattleand role?
Lieutenant Young: If you have ever been to space mountain it is like riding a roller coaster in the dark. You have a navigator trying to keep you out of the worst part of the storm so you can imagine just seeing red all around you on the radar and trying to pick the least of the worst part.
Greta: And the navigator you say tries to keep you out of the worst part.I assume that tries thenavigator doesn't always succeed.
Lieutenant Young: It is not that at all. It is just that you are vourned by thunderstorms and sometimes there's not really a weak part so you get through however you can.
Greta: What is the point?What do you learn and what doyou measure? What do you seek to study?
Lieutenant Young: We are measuring basically all the same things that a weather balloon will measure. We release a weather instrument called the drop sond and as it floats down it is measuring temperature, the dew point, which we calculate into relative humidity, the wind speed and wind direction off the G.P.S. Module and the pressure. As it reaches the surface it blanks out and the last reading we get is the sealable pressure. That's what tells us whether it is intensifying or weakening. And also as we are flying 105 miles out in every direction from the center it is giving us the steering winds which tell us the way it is going next.
Greta: What did you learn aboutit flying through it that hasany level of prediction fortonight and tomorrow, if anything?Maybe you can't predict based on what you learned.
Lieutenant Young: We gather the data, send it to national hurricane center in realtime and they disseminate it to the media. So their forecasts are entirely based on the data we gather and they say it increases the accuracy by about 30% than going from strictly satellite.
Greta: Do you like doing this?
Lieutenant Young: Yes. I have been doing it about eight years.
Greta: And it doesn't disturbyou to fly a plane in ahurricane? You feel comfortable and secure?
Lieutenant Young: Well, all of us were affected by Katrina. We all live around Gulfport and we realize how much it affects people and how much the information they find out from us helps them to get out in time. So, it feeds to the emergency responders and we feel like it helps.
Exclnt! FoxNews latest info without my having to watch Greta! Think maybe next you could work on super-imposing Rushbo over top of every MSM anchor for me?
Thanks! Everything is eerily quiet in Grnvle just now.
WOW that was fast!!!!
Hey CD - you're dealing with Ophelia this week for your birthday --- wonder what one we'll be dealing with for mine next week :)
One of the strangest things that happens when salt water flies through the air in hurricane force winds is that it kills the leaves on the trees that it doesn't blow off. I'm no botanist so I don't know if it's the shock of the wind or the salt or both, but those leaves and small twigs are dead and falling off the trees. It looks like January when you look through the neighborhoods. My Pop said the same thing happened in Ivan, and the leaves came back.
Trying to make sense of what you wrote about Bastardi. Is he saying storms are going to continually develop and hit the Carolinas in 10-15 day cycles with an occasional one to the Gulf of Mexico? Can you clarify what he said.