Discussion: Hurricane Irma Takes Direct Aim At Florida, 850K Ordered To Evacuate

“It’s the beginning of an adventure.”
Carmen Pardo, voicing her entry for Understatement of the Year competition.

This is going to be catastrophic.

This is the scariest graphic I’ve seen that truly represents its enormity.

Note: It’s not over Texas. Shown for scale only.
Also be aware it was only downgraded to a Cat 4
because its winds were 5 mph less than a Cat 5.

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It’s also possible it could restrengthen to cat 5, once it“s past Cuba and over more open warm water. This is one big mf’in’ tempest.

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Most of the hurricane scientists and modelers are calling that just short of a given. At one point, they’ve said, it would’ve been classified as a Cat 6 but the scale didn’t go that high.

With your permission I’ll go ahead and enter that into the “Understatement of the Year” competition.

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The strongest portion of the storm is the northeastern section of the eye wall. If Irma tacks towards the western coast of Florida it means that region will hit Miami like a bullseye. On the other hand, swinging east will mean the ocean takes the brunt of the storm.

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If by ocean you mean the northern Bahamas, then yeah.
Given the storm surge they’d get, I think I’d rather Miami took the hit.

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Is the eyewall to scale there? Because that eyewall’s diameter looks like it would cover half the width of the FL peninsula.

Yes. Everything is to scale. Scary, huh?

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I have almost no hurricane intuition, but if I’m understanding this correctly, a route up the middle of the peninsula would wipe out the center of the state almost like a tornado while the wings whip up storm swells that should essentially drown the state’s coastal areas. And that’s not counting rain. I guess it would lose some energy on entry and lose more energy by the time it gets about 2/3 up the peninsula, but even so a trip up the middle seems worst case. The whole state would be a disaster zone.

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Here’s Jose dogging Irma’s heels. Cat 4 now and almost as big as big sister.

Buy orange juice if you plan to want any for the next year.

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Jose is forecast to stay out in the Atlantic after it batters a few of the less fortunate Irma ravaged islands.

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No landfall on the mainland?

Yea, it’s terrible about those small islands. You just know there’s not enough concern for them!

Another comparison - Irma’s size next to that of Andrew. Andrew’s the little one.

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I’m on the gulf coast, and we’re waiting to find out tonight whether my zone is going to have a mandatory evacuation tomorrow. We really don’t want to evacuate because of medical reasons, and not knowing until the last minute makes it harder. I understand the rationale for waiting, since the roads, hotels, and shelters are already over crowded, but trying to plan for multiple eventualities while waiting for the zig or zag is…stressful.

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A neighbor has some friends that evacuated from Florida, they drove in their huge Chevy Suburban. An pretty much everybody that I know that has moved over there has bought a big-ass truck or SUV although most of them are childless (reason given is to pull the boat). They prefer to think that lifestyles with high energy consumption have nothing to do with climate (Climate change is a natural cycle, besides we could use more warm weather).

I don’t really expect Irma to convince anyone in Florida that large footprint wasteful lifestyles are a bad idea. They will just ask congress for money so that they can rebuild with bigger houses.

The image that scares me…

Florida Gov. Rick Scott urged people in coastal and low-lying areas to heed evacuation orders.

He warned, however, that people should give themselves time to adjust to the altitude if they plan to travel to the Florida highlands, where some mountains rise more than 300 feet above sea level.

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What I don’t get is why reporters and weather people insist that they must report on dangerous storms * while attempting to stand upright in them*. Wind blowing ferociously, chunks of roof blowing by them, debris everywhere…

We get it already
You don’t need to endanger yourselves.

Ratings chase v. journalism with integrity.