Kiss My Ass Irene

Weren't you recently saying the exact opposite about the snow plow issue? Weren't you blaming government for not anticipating and preparing for the worst so they could take care of the people in the snow storm?

I saw the weathermen explaining it's not an exact science. Even the finest meteorological minds can't be certain what chance does a fuckwit like Hawkeye have? He's just trying to sound like the he's got a clue, but the only person he's fooling is himself.

On the negative side, the forecast after Irene hit the Bahamas had it staying as a Category 3 and possibly increasing to a Category 4. But it weakened and hit as a Category 1 storm and stayed that way up the coast until it faded into a tropical storm by the time it reached New York City. It lost strength as it moved north over land and cooler water.

Read said they will go back and figure out what happened, but noted they have made huge strides in projecting where a hurricane will hit. In past storms, they would have issued warnings for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, but there were no evacuations there for Irene.

"We're not completely sure how the interplay of various features is causing the strength of a storm to change," Read said.

One theory is that a storm's strength is dependent on the storm's inner core. Irene never had a classic, fully formed eye wall -- even going through the Bahamas as a Category 3.

"Why it did that, we don't know," Read said. "That's a gap in the science.

According to Expert Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, "The notion of a storm surge to 11 feet in New York City is unfounded."
The storm is too weak and moving at the wrong angle says Sosnowski.
"This is not a Category 3 or 4 hurricane moving in from the southeast at northern New Jersey, but rather a Category 1 storm that will be weakening moving northward," Sosnowski added.
There will be problems, but this is not the Armageddon storm in terms of storm surge people are making this out to be for New York City. Minor flooding of Battery Park is likely, but has occurred in the past.
The storm surge will raise water levels about 3 feet above published values on average, with parts of the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Long Island enduring a 3- to 6-foot surge.

Adding to the situation will be pounding waves on top of the water levels.
Making the situation worse, is the arrival of the storm with the new moon and the astronomically high tide levels associated with it. However, Sosnowski cautions, the astronomical tides are figured into the normal, published levels (high and low). These published values are calculated years in advance. There has been a tendency to misread projected storm influence water levels as a result.

The floodwalls protecting Manhattan are only five feet above mean sea level. During the December 12, 1992 Nor'easter, powerful winds from the 990 mb storm drove an 8-foot storm surge into the Battery Park on the south end of Manhattan. The ocean poured over the city's seawall for several hours, flooding the NYC subway and the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH) train systems in Hoboken New Jersey. FDR Drive in lower Manhattan was flooded with 4 feet of water, which stranded more than 50 cars and required scuba divers to rescue some of the drivers. Mass transit between New Jersey and New York was down for ten days, and the storm did hundreds of millions in damage to the city. Tropical Storm Floyd of 1999 generated a storm surge just over 3 feet at the Battery, but the surge came at low tide, and did not flood Manhattan. The highest water level recorded at the Battery in the past century came in September 1960 during Hurricane Donna, which brought a storm surge of 8.36 feet to the Battery and flooded lower Manhattan to West and Cortland Streets. However, the highest storm surge on record in New York City occurred during the September 3, 1821 hurricane, the only hurricane ever to make a direct hit on the city. The water rose 13 feet in just one hour at the Battery, and flooded lower Manhattan as far north as Canal Street, an area that now has the nation's financial center. The total surge is unknown from this greatest New York City hurricane, which was probably a Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds. NOAA's SLOSH model predicts that a mid-strength Category 2 hurricane with 100-mph winds could drive a 15 - 20 foot storm surge to Manhattan, Queens, Kings, and up the Hudson River. JFK airport could be swamped, southern Manhattan would flood north to Canal Street, and a surge traveling westwards down Long Island Sound might breach the sea walls that protect La Guardia Airport. Many of the power plants that supply the city with electricity might be knocked out, or their docks to supply them with fuel destroyed. The more likely case of a Category 1 hurricane hitting at high tide would still be plenty dangerous, with waters reaching 8 - 12 feet above ground level in Lower Manhattan. Given the spread in the models, I predict a 20% chance that New York City will experience a storm surge in excess of 8 feet that will over-top the flood walls in Manhattan and flood the subway system. This would most likely occur near 8 pm Sunday night, when high tide will occur and Irene should be near its point of closest approach. Such a storm surge could occur even if Irene weakens to a tropical storm on its closest approach to New York City

Laurie Hogan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s operations on Long Island, said that the storm was expected to hit a little after 8 a.m. on Sunday. It was expected to cause storm surges of seven feet at the southern tip of Staten Island, and of more than five feet at Battery Park, at the bottom of Manhattan.