We haven't even gotten the water out of the homes in Texas from the last Hurricane and here comes HURRICANE IRMA. The kicker is that it's the biggest storm EVERY RECORDED. It's 400 MILES WIDE and it's heading toward Florida which is only 100 Miles Wide!! So it will be ravaging the sunshine state from stem to stern then moving on to Georgia, my home state.

Already folks are clogging the highways going north just trying to get away from it. I can't blame them. It's gonna be bad. Here is a quick vid.

Always wondered, such events happen almost every year yet USA always suffers the same. I mean homes can be made from concrete (even roofs), powerlines can be placed underground, water can be stored for a very long time...

Anyway, take care during the storm! let us know how you are time to time incase you'll lose internet connection and ofcourse this goes for other GMC'ers too who live in the storm area.

This is scary stuff! Do we have any GMCers nearby?

Todd form what I can tell you seem to be on the safe side.

You noticed that

It's really not the same every year, it is getting worse due to the effect of global warming, all this has been prognosticated in predictive models. The Houston event had been considered a 500 year event. This is the most powerful hurricane every recorded. If it holds it's force and follows the line it looks like it is going to follow, well just wait a few days, this may make the Houston event pale in comparison.

Miami like some other cities simple have no business being there in this age, especially as the effect of the Chinese hoax become increasingly pronounced as time passes. They can't even protect Miami with a sea wall, the limestone base is too soft and permeable. Building with concrete won't stop the flooding.

I'm in Georgia and we are directly in the path of the storm. About 50 seconds in to this vid they show the path of storm and it heads right through the center of Georgia.



So much for being on the "Safe side" eh?

The good news is that it will have burned out some of the worst of it on florida by the time it gets here. I wish I was on the safe side But the safe side is not on the east coast where I am. The folks that will get the worst are in Florida. The storm is wider the Florida so the entire state is going to get the crap beat out of it, followed by south carolina then Georgia. So if I lose internet I'll try to use my cell phone to let folks know.

I am honestly worried for friends and family in Florida. My family in Florida, like many Floridians, are a stubborn bunch and they are STAYING! So I hope they are ok. There is a massive migration of people heading north as people get the news that this storm is a killer storm. FEMA is stretched thin with TEXAS still under water. They are saying recovery in texas may take decades. Florida is going to get hit twice as hard so we have no way to predict what the losses and damage will be. So all positive vibes/prayers/thoughts for those in the path of this thing are appreciated

Todd



I was trying not to mention that as it leads to one of those "Global warming is a hoax" type of threads that ends up being shut down, but yes, you are correct. The warmer ocean temps are making these storms worse and this is the worst we have seen, EVER since they started keeping records. It's not CAUSED by climate change but it's made worse by it. Just wanted to avoid anything remotely political and you can't talk about that stuff without somebody starting a food fight.

You are also right about Houston being a 500 year storm and that IRMA makes Storm Harvey look like a water hose. It's twice the size, more wind speed, etc. It.s a killer.

Miami beach is likely going to get wiped off the map. Most of the high rises are going to get hit hard as well as they are in the very spot where the storm will make landfall. Miami beach has been using pumps to get water out of the streets for years as they are slowly being sunk by rising ocean levels from the hoax. The hoax is now whipping up this storm which will reset all parameters on building codes for the region. I just hope the body count is low.

Todd



This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 8 2017, 04:19 AM

Ouch ok - we'll be with you [spiritually]. Hopefully it will have weakened substantially by the time it reaches you. I guess you're not planning on leaving - or?

And I also hope this will at least trigger a more fruitful debate about climate change in the US - once the critical phase is over.

It should weaken to a category 1 by the time it gets to my state which is good news. Hopefully it will just be rainy and windy. Not like Florida where it's expected to be a category 5 when it hit Miami. The longer it's over land, the weaker it will get. It's the folks at the tip of the spear, lower florida that are in serious trouble and are being told to evacuate and get to a shelter.

I would hope that this event could spark a fruitful debate on climate and not just the usual talking points. It's hard to deny the oceans are warmer and that warmer oceans mean worse storms during storm season. The crux of the argument seems to be if the warming is man made, or just a natural cycle for the earth. It seems that no matter how many studies show that we are doing this to ourselves, there are a few studies funded by folks who oppose any legislation that would create things like a "Carbon tax" that invent data and try to convince everyone that this isn't man made. Then pundits try to say that this fraction of scientists is actually a majority of scientists somehow and that several blogs/web sites confirm this, even though the sites are politically motivated and suspect on authenticity. However, some folks just don't want to believe this is our fault, so they just dont accept it no matter what the data.

Ultimately, at least here in the US, it's gonna be the insurance companies that determine where one builds and what standards they must build to.

In Cali, if you live right on the coast - you can't get homeowners insurance. You can put up a bond but you can't get actual insurance. *And this started long before we talked about climate change. The Pacific (which is not so pacifico) pummels the west coast and erodes the coastline. Every year the sea eats and swallows a half dozen houses. Also, out here, earthquake insurance is 1) expensive and 2) the deductible is ridiculous - 20% of your house's insured value ($250,000 house = deductible is $50,000). Same with fire insurance if you live at the edge of or in the forest of the hills to the north and east of here. Some companies won't cover you at all and some will charge a separate and very high 'extra' premium. That's how the quake insurance works. Sold and backed by the state but brokered through the private ins cos and, it's a separate bill. In most cases it's the same price per month as one's regular homeowners policy. So you pay double for coverage that may or may not kick in depending on much damage you sustain.

State Farm, Allstate and the like are just going to stop selling insurance if you want to build on reclaimed swamp land or tear up a marsh, or live in a flood plain or even if you just live at sea level by the coast. Those 100 year storms now seem to happen every 3 years.

This post has been edited by klasaine: Sep 8 2017, 08:27 PM

Alligators, snakes, cockroaches, mosquitos, brain eating amoeba, heat, humidity, swamps,... Even without hurricanes, Florida is just barely fit for human habitation .

Seriously though, you're right. There's been a shift in the past year and you see more coastal communities in the southeast, especially Louisiana, seriously considering relocating or abandoning their towns. It doesn't matter why, the fact is change is coming. Almost the entire state of Florida is just a few feet above sea level. Since it's surrounded on three sides by water you can't build some dikes like the Netherlands to keep the water out. One good storm surge and all those people evacuating will have nothing to come home to. You have to wonder if maybe they should just keep driving north and not come back.

For anyone that is interested. Here is a link to a live stream from Key West Florida. Down at the bottom of that page there are links to other live streams such as Miami and Tampa etc.

http://www.keywestharborwebcam.com/

I wasn't gonna mention that either. But now that you bring it up, we have several of these "once in a lifetime" storms coming one right after another. There are two more storms churning in the sea and heading our way. So just after getting crushed by Harvey, here comes the monster IRMA and right behind it is Hurricane JOSE and Hurricane KATIA!

So we are looking at FOUR IN A ROW. Hopefully the other two won't hit us directly. Hopefully they will burn out over the sea.


here are some stats

Irma made landfall in Cuba as a Category 5 hurricane but weakened Saturday morning to a Category 3 with 125 mph winds.
More than 6 million people in Florida have been ordered to leave.
More than 32,700 were without power as of Saturday afternoon.
It began hitting the Florida Keys Saturday.
The latest track has the storm's path on the western coast of Florida. The National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges.
At least 23 people were killed by the storm when it hit parts of the Caribbean.





This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 9 2017, 08:04 PM

I hadn't thought about this til now, but lots of folks are going to lose power and that could include me and other folks here in the upper part of Ga. Everyone in south Georgia and EVERYONE in Florida is expected to be without power for an indeterminate amount of time. I'm in the "possible" band near the top of the state.



This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 9 2017, 08:35 PM

The Governor of Georgia has declared a state of emergency for the entire state Georgia at this point and we are all under a power outage warning as well as tropical storm warning. We are going to have it a lot easier than Florida to be sure, but sadly, most of the state of Ga could be without power for several days. Not looking forward to that at all. I feel for the people in florida crammed in to shelters who have been without power since yesterday in some parts. This is going to really ravage florida and maybe ga, and the recovery is going to be expensive and long. If we have any GMCers in Florida, my heart goes out to you and our thoughts are with you.

Here is the power outtage map



While I was looking for youtube vids on the storm, I found one by a guy named Alex Jones (bit of a fascist huckster who sells tactical taint wipes) featuring a big explanation as to why sunspots are to blame for the storm and that man made climate change had nothing to do with it. It seems there are some lessons that my countrymen are just too stubborn to learn or ever accept. Even in the face of tragedy, evidence, etc. God himself could come down and explain it and it probably wouldn't matter. Still I hope we all come through this as best as possible and we are all going to be needing help from each other in the south for quite some time so hopefully it will bring people together.



This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 10 2017, 09:42 PM

Ok Todd - fingers crossed the storm won't take away power for too long from you..!

Amen to that!!! Studio will be useless, air conditioner useless, refrigerator useless and everything goes bad in it, no internet access accept for the phone, uggh. I really hope we don't lose power. Millions of people have lost power in florida and the transformers have exploded from being flooded. They have no idea when power will return. I'm really glad I don't live in Florida.I feel bad for those folks.

I am going to expand my guitar charity drive to include folks from Florida and not just Texas. \

In case I haven't mentioned it I made a charity for getting guitars back in the hands of players in Texas who lost their gear in the flood.

http://www.texasmusiciansfund.com



I"m going to include Florida as well as soon as this all settles down. There are going to be a LOT of people who lose all of their gear as a result of this storm.


Todd

Here is some food for thought concerning where we are in the study of the weather and climate change from the IPCC. It addresses the further work that is needed to understand our changing climate.

Here are some quotes from an executive summary.

"The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."

"Address more completely patterns of long-term climate variability including the occurrence of extreme events. This topic arises both in model calculations and in the climate system. In simulations, the issue of climate drift within model calculations needs to be clarified better in part because it compounds the difficulty of distinguishing signal and noise. With respect to the long-term natural variability in the climate system per se, it is important to understand this variability and to expand the emerging capability of predicting patterns of organised variability such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This predictive capability is both a valuable test of model performance and a useful contribution in natural resource and economic management."

Read the entire summary here.

https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/501.htm

It appears we actually have a long way to go before we can understand how and why the climate changes and politicizing the issue and every storm or natural disaster that comes along does not contribute in any way in my view.

Clearly it's a complex subject that will need to be studied in depth. There is no end in sight for the research itself as it's a dynamic system that is constantly changing. So yeah, it's hard to argue against the fact that more research is required. Endless research is actually required. However, we can say that warming oceans (no matter what the cause) are making tropical storms worse. It's just a simple fact that such storms feed on warm water. As the oceans continue to warm, the storms are going to continue to get worse.

We had Two Category 4 storms make landfall in one year. (actually within about a month) this has NEVER happened in all of our recorded history. The folks in texas and florid who are currently under water, can tell you all about the effect of overblown storms. Have we caused this? Probably. Is there anything we can do about it? Honestly, at this point, not much. We can't make every country including china stop doing the things that are contributing to the problem. We can try to lead by example, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon obviously.

So we are left with warming seas and worsening storms every year with no end in sight.

I'm currently WITHOUT POWER and using my cell phone as a hot spot just to make this post. I've NEVER seen wind gusts like I've seen in this storm in the state of Georgia and I"ve lived here most of my life. It ripped a huge tree apart right in front of my house from the sheer force of wind. We are no where near the actual storm. Just the tail end of end has caused blackouts and uprooted trees all over Georgia.

It's really quite sad, that despite all of the evidence that points toward ourselves being the problem that we as a species can't come together and try to at least slow it down. It seems we are simply not capable of this so expect bigger storms. They are coming.

Here is a vid of scientist Bill Nye (not a pundit, just a hard core scientist in conjunction with National Geographic, both sources are very hard to impune on any level imho) explaining what causes climate change and suggesting that the only real changes are the ones that we make ourselves. Are these personal changes enough to even slow what's happening? We don't really know. Still, at least he makes some suggestions that we can do on a personal level.





This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 12 2017, 02:14 AM

Here is a great article from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (not a pundit blog, but a publication with a long and respected history). It's an article on the connection between these Super Storms and Climate change. The connection is far more real than many folks want to acknowledge or admit. Truth is that 70 percent of green house gas emissions come from about 100 companies including folks like Exxon. They have spent billions to create a counter narrative and brainwash a huge swath of folks. As a result, between them and China/India, the problem is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better IMHO.



https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observ...ane-connection/

Here is a quote from the article. We can connect climate change directly to past storms.

"Furthermore, a warmer ocean surface means more moisture in the atmosphere. A fundamental rule of atmospheric thermodynamics known as the Clausius-Clapeyron equation indicates an increase of roughly 7 percent more moisture in the air for each degree Celsius of increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Global SSTs have risen now the better part of a degree C and conditions in which SSTs are several degrees C above normal are now more common as a result. Unusually warm SSTs contributed to the flooding power of both Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irene in 2011."

This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 14 2017, 08:19 PM

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

E. Summary for Atlantic Hurricanes and Global Warming

In summary, neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm counts over the past 120+ yr support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic. One modeling study projects a large (~100%) increase in Atlantic category 4-5 hurricanes over the 21st century, but we estimate that this increase may not be detectable until the latter half of the century.

Therefore, we conclude that despite statistical correlations between SST and Atlantic hurricane activity in recent decades, it is premature to conclude that human activity–and particularly greenhouse warming–has already caused a detectable change in Atlantic hurricane activity. (“Detectable” here means the change is large enough to be distinguishable from the variability due to natural causes.) However, human activity may have already caused some some changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observation limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).

We also conclude that it is likely that climate warming will cause hurricanes in the coming century to be more intense globally and to have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes. In our view, there are better than even odds that the numbers of very intense (category 4 and 5) hurricanes will increase by a substantial fraction in some basins, while it is likely that the annual number of tropical storms globally will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged. These assessment statements are intended to apply to climate warming of the type projected for the 21st century by IPCC AR4 scenarios, such as A1B.

The relatively conservative confidence levels attached to these projections, and the lack of a claim of detectable anthropogenic influence at this time contrasts with the situation for other climate metrics, such as global mean temperature. In the case of global mean surface temperature, the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (2013) presents a strong body of scientific evidence that most of the global warming observed over the past half century is very likely due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We should keep in mind that the successful predictability of climate modelling used to come up with similar conclusions in the past have been dismal up to now and arguably 0%.
We should also take note that none of the hurricane models for Irma were accurate in their predictions at say 5 days out or even 3 days out and although the results of the storm were bad that they did not live up to the forecasted predictions.

This post has been edited by AK Rich: Sep 15 2017, 05:07 AM