HURRICANE ISABEL becomes first Atlantic Category 5 Hurricane since 1998.....

National Hurricane Center ^ | September 11, 2003 | Pasch

[John H K]

BULLETIN HURRICANE ISABEL ADVISORY NUMBER 23 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 5 PM AST THU SEP 11 2003

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS ISABEL NOW AT CATEGORY FIVE INTENSITY...

SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT HURRICANE ISABEL HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN...AND HAS REACHED CATEGORY FIVE INTENSITY ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. ISABEL IS THE FIRST CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN SINCE MITCH OF 1998.

AT 5 PM AST...2100Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE ISABEL WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 21.6 NORTH... LONGITUDE 55.3 WEST OR ABOUT 500 MILES...805 KM...EAST-NORTHEAST OF THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLAND.

ISABEL IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 9 MPH...15 KM/HR...AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 160 MPH...260 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN INTENSITY ARE LIKELY OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 60 MILES... 95 KM... FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 185 MILES...295 KM.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 921 MB...27.20 INCHES.

LARGE OCEAN SWELLS AND DANGEROUS SURF CONDITIONS ARE LIKELY OVER PORTIONS OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS...THE VIRGIN ISLANDS...AND PUERTO RICO OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS.

REPEATING THE 5 PM AST POSITION...21.6 N... 55.3 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD...WEST NEAR 9 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...160 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 921 MB.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT 11 PM AST.

FORECASTER PASCH

[Howlin]

North where?

[Moose4]

It's called Festival in the Park, in Freedom Park in Charlotte from 18-21 September. Last year was our first year there and we sold well and had a good time. My wife, also a Freeper (the lovely and talented Foxfire4), makes bead jewelry. We love being probably only the conservative beaders in existence. :)

Oh yeah, about hurricanes, don't forget that they don't disappear crossing the coast. Hugo tore up Charlotte in 1989, of course. And in 1969, after coming ashore as the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the United States, Camille traveled a thousand miles up the Appalachians and killed around a hundred people in Virginia, near my hometown. Nothing quite like 24" of rain in one night. }:-)4

[My Favorite Headache]

Out to sea. This will not even reach the mainland.

[palmer]

Nova Scotia

[My Favorite Headache]

Exactly...I see we agree on this.

[Howlin]

I hope you guys are right; my niece just moved one row back at Wrightsville Beach.

[Dixie Pirate]

We live at Jacksonville Beach. Always keepin one eye open!

[SuziQ]

Ye Gads! She's a monster!

[Amelia]

Hugo was a beast.

You got that right. I was in Augusta GA during the storm, and we had some wind from Hugo even there.

I drove up I-95 through SC a week after Hugo, at night, which was an eerie experience - all the road signs and exit signs were blown down from just above Walterboro north, the power was still out in most of that area, but where the power was back on, the spotlights which were supposed to illuminate billboards were just shining up into the night.

Above Santee, trees had blown down into the road, and the road crews had cut them off at the edge of the emergency lane and dragged the pieces off the pavement, but my headlights still illuminated them right at the edge of the pavement. There were also a number of rough places in the pavement where the limbs had knocked holes into it.

[Vinnie]

M-51? Trying to remember the Messier numbers. In Ursa Major? ( Big Dipper)

striking resemblance, sans an 'eye'.

[Moose4]

Oh wow, I drove into Wrightsville Beach a couple days after Fran blew through. Really weird seeing a three-story beach house blown backward into the street. I was actually surprised there wasn't more damage.

People have been telling me stories about what Hugo did around here and in Charlotte...nothing like happened around Charleston and Georgetown, of course, but a fair bit of damage for being that far inland.

Floyd was a total bust in central SC because of that last-minute northward turn. I still remember seeing a radar image of the westernmost rain bands of Floyd literally ending five miles from here. While the Triangle and parts southeast were getting pounded, we got .9" rain. That was it. And that after everybody was screaming that it was going to be Hugo, The Sequel.

I just hope folks take this one seriously. They botched the Floyd evacuation so badly it took folks 12-18 hours or more to make the 125 miles from Charleston up here. People are now worried that that experience so turned people off that they won't evacuate next time.

}:-)4

[mykdsmom]

Oh no, WAY WAY WAY worse than that. Not just huge limbs breaking off but whole trees uprooting and smashing through people's roofs and on their cars. Entire rows of houses were destroyed.

We had had a particularly wet summer (although no where near as wet as this summer) before the Sept that Fran hit and the ground was super saturated before we got 10-15 inches of Fran rain. It just uprooted trees by the thousands. There was virtually nowhere in this city you could drive to for days for the trees that blocked all of the roads.

Add 100 mph. winds to that and you have a HUGE mess on your hands. Pretty remarkable she was still a hurricane when she reached Raleigh over 100 miles inland. The night I spent going through Andrew in S FL and the night I spent going through Fran in NC were 2 of the most terrifying nights of my life.

As bad as the trees falling were though, the transformers exploding and arcing wires all night long was equally bad. Made much worse d/t the lack of power so you don't have a clue what is going on outside just this horrible noise and crashing. I don't ever want to go through this again in my lifetime.

MKM

[Amelia]

I love your tagline!

[Vinnie]

I'm in South Florida and Isabel seems to be headed STRAIGHT at us

It would have to track almost due West to hit S. Fla.
Relax, this one is going North of you, toward ME!!

( and when I moved to NC from S. Fla. I thought my hurricane worries were over, boy was that a mistake)

[StriperSniper]

No, a Cat5 is open-ended on the upside, and it starts at 155MPH sustained winds.

SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE

[peacethroughstrength]

Isn't that Hurricane Shirley Jackson Lee?

[varina davis]

Appreciate your tag line.

[glory]

I remember Andrew too. Nasty storm, nasty results. I remember that there were pretty much no landmarks left--it was pretty barren for an area covered in palm, mangrove, and passion fruit trees. To get to my mother's condo, you had to drive carefully through electric wires that crossed this way and that on the road and through the air. Very bizarre and eerie feeling going through all of that. I recently visited the Miami area for the first time since that storm(I moved shortly after it hit in 92) and there were still areas that were not repaired or seemed overgrown compared to how I remember them(like they had been abandoned). Strange feeling going there after 11 years!

[Vinnie]

Yes you are. And after seeing your tag line I see why. (G)