[HN Gopher] Hurricane Ida could be close to Cat 4, dump up to 20...
___________________________________________________________________
Hurricane Ida could be close to Cat 4, dump up to 20" of rain in
S.E. Louisiana
Author : lsllc
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-08-27 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nola.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nola.com)
| nixpulvis wrote:
| How does this 20" of rain compare to Katrina?
| https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3221
| jeffbee wrote:
| I don't know but the scale of that viz only goes to 80mm, which
| is only 3 inches.
|
| The forecast for the river in New Orleans suggest no flooding
| this week.
|
| https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=lix&gage=...
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Hurricane Katrina saw 15" of rain over New Orleans in 2005,
| though a higher storm surge was measured (14') than what is
| predicted for Ida (7--11').
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
|
| http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL122005_Katrina.pdf [pdf]
|
| There are multiple factors that come into play.
|
| There's storm surge and tides. Tides around Morgan City are
| pretty modest (less than 1/2 foot / 15cm total range), _and
| will be low as the storm arrives_. Storm surge forcast is 7-11
| ft per NOAA. Given the extreme low-lying land, that 's
| significant. I don't have comparative numbers for Katrina
| offhand.
|
| The total rainfall amount is one. The period of time over which
| it falls, _and where the storm goes afterward_ are also
| critical. Ida looks to be slow-moving, and is presently slated
| to track pretty much directly up the Mississippi river, then
| over the Ohio River Valley.
|
| That means there's going to be heavy river flow coming
| downstream possibly for several weeks after the storm itself
| passes. I'd predicted and observed a similar trend when
| Hurricane Florence hit Wilmington, NC, in 2018, and upstream-
| based water flows contributed to flooding, and issues such as
| hog farm sludge empoundments (basically: pig shit lakes) in the
| region. For Louisiana, the concern is probably more petroleum
| refining and chemical plants.
|
| Note that Florence hung around for _days_. Ida looks as if it
| will stick around Southern Louisiana for about 18 hours, then
| start accelerating to the NNE, though remaining over the
| drainage baisin feeding into New Orleans.
| cryptoz wrote:
| I am collecting data on this storm using barometers in Android
| devices with All Clear Weather:
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearwe...
|
| If you want to join, you can download the app and go to
| Settings->Sensors to enable.
|
| Here's an animation I made of Hurricane Dorian a couple years ago
| as it approached the coast of Florida:
| https://www.allclearweather.com/hurricane-dorian
|
| And of course, there are recent scientific papers showing that
| this kind of data (barometric pressure from phones) could be
| useful in general weather forecasting to improve accuracy:
|
| Smartphone Pressure Collection and Bias Correction Using Machine
| Learning:
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JTECH-D-17-009...
|
| Impacts of Assimilating Smartphone Pressure Observations on
| Forecast Skill during Two Case Studies in the Pacific Northwest:
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WAF-D-18-0085....
| [deleted]
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| There's nothing to be happy about when a hurricane is bearing
| down on you, and it's worse when you're caught on the east side
| of the storm with heavy rains because the winds blow counter
| clockwise, meaning that rivers and streams and lakes that open or
| drain into the Gulf of Mexico will pile up and keep getting
| higher as long as the story is over the area. Southeast Louisiana
| can take 20 inches of rain over a few days, but not when there's
| no place for the water to go.
| WaltPurvis wrote:
| The National Hurricane Center has updated the forecast for Ida
| and now calls for it to be a 140 MPH Cat 4 (or greater) at
| landfall. The previous forecast had Ida topping out as a 120 MPH
| Cat 3. Storm surge of 10 to 15 feet above ground level will
| impact a broad area.
|
| https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/271449...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Well I hope the trucker motels in West Memphis aren't full.
| Althuns wrote:
| There's still flooding from last week's storm in TN...
| h2odragon wrote:
| They found the last person yesterday:
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fema-administrator-tours...
|
| The word is that the railroad embankment acted as a temporary
| levee and stored a large charge of water up, until it failed.
| Then this impromptu lake charged right through town. It's usual
| for that are to flood, this was just a _lot_ more water all at
| one time than usual.
|
| There were pictures of cars filled with gravel; and that rail
| berm blown completely out, tracks dangling.
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| What some might not know is that New Orleans is currently
| extremely unprepared for a major hurricane. Some water pumps are
| offline, and the city is currently in the middle of a huge amount
| of road and infrastructure work. Flooding will likely be much
| worse for this storm than normal.
|
| If you're in New Orleans, I recommend considering an evacuation
| if you have somewhere to go.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Naive question: Isn't it possible to plan those things when
| it's not hurricane season?
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Not-hurricane season is the winter, difficult for
| construction, though I don't know exactly about that far
| south.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| "Not-hurricane" season extends from November through May,
| and potentially into June, in terms of low likelihoods of
| storms. As others note, Louisiana winters are exceptionally
| mild, and are generally _preferable_ to summers for outdoor
| activity.
|
| Late August / early September, by marked contrast, is
| _peak_ hurricane season.
| beerandt wrote:
| Winter is the wetter season.
|
| Which most people don't realize, because it also rains so
| much in the summer. But it's so hot in the summer, that
| evaporation out paces the rain.
|
| The driest months are Sept-Oct, which is peak hurricane
| season.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Winter in Louisiana is nice and balmy, we northerners would
| not call that winter. Above freezing, no snow. Much better
| conditions for manual labour than the summer there tbh.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Ok, fair enough. A lot of civil planning uses really long
| tail distributions for temp and so on, so I still wonder
| when stuff is schedulable.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Hahahaha no, the pumps are barely at capacity for a storm
| right now because half of them are like 100 years old and
| take a really weird voltage that can only be supplied by the
| Sewerage & Water Board's generators. One of which has been
| waiting on repairs since like last summer. I can't recall the
| exact reasons it's taking so long, I know it's a combination
| of "barely anyone even knows how to make the replacement
| part", "city's broke", and _waves vaguely at all the supply
| chain mess caused by covid_.
|
| (One of our major industries is tourism, though a lot of that
| money gets siphoned off to the pockets of the tourist board.
| Mardi Gras 2020 was the last gasp of that before covid. We
| normally have a shit-ton of festivals all year round that
| draw people in to spend money. They've all been cancelled.)
|
| And the roads are _always_ sinking, the city 's built on
| swamp. There will never be a time where the roads (or
| something under them) do not need maintenance. I'm sure the
| money crunch ain't helping that get done in a sane timeframe
| either. Also "hurricane season" is like half the year
| normally, and the past several years have had it well
| underway in the preceding month.
| beerandt wrote:
| >really weird voltage
|
| No- voltage would be easy to change with a transformer.
|
| It's that many pumps run on 25hz, not the 60hz of the power
| grid.
|
| They have to change frequencies via mechanical methods
| (motor-gearing-generator) or generate their own power via
| on-site turbines.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| They wanted to make sure the FEMA money wasn't stolen. I
| don't blame them.
| sschueller wrote:
| Yes, just how you plan construction on existing
| infrastructure that can't be "turned off". You should at
| least not make what exists worse.
| nolaspring wrote:
| I live in a part of town affected by one of the pump outages.
| In any other city in the country this would be shocking and
| whatnot. Here it's an opportunity to lampoon the local
| government because that's all we have.
| koheripbal wrote:
| It's also just false outrage generated by media that wants to
| shock readers.
|
| The reality is that, from the article...
|
| >Other nearby stations are expected to have enough capacity
| to pick up the slack
|
| At the individual pump level...
|
| > 96 out of the S&WB's 99 main drainage pumps are ready for
| Ida.
| siruncledrew wrote:
| I'd imagine being prepared will be harder and harder to do each
| year as climate change means longer/worse hurricane seasons.
|
| The reality is there will always be rain/winds/damage from
| hurricanes, but how is a place supposed to be ready for another
| Katrina every couple years now?
|
| It sounds like a constant state of disaster-rebuilding-
| disaster-rebuilding...
| ctoth wrote:
| Crazy idea: instead of rebuilding, move. If this is happening
| every 15 years, maybe that's a message that we should be
| listening to. Somebody else said that if we evacuated every
| time a hurricane threatened, we'd be evacuated half the year.
| Sounds half right!
| koheripbal wrote:
| Why? The pumps are not used a majority of the time. They are
| only needed when it rains.
|
| They are _usually_ not working, so maintenance should be
| easy.
|
| ...which it is because 96 of the 99 pumps are currently
| operational.
| acchow wrote:
| > Some water pumps are offline, and the city is currently in
| the middle of a huge amount of road and infrastructure work.
|
| Why?
| whymauri wrote:
| Some context: https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_2f5
| 08a9e-06b8-11...
|
| Sounds like turbine failures?
| nolaspring wrote:
| Turbine failures, lack of redundancy, 100 year old
| equipment with no supply chain.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Most people I know here are staying at present. If it is Cat 4+
| that might change.
| whymauri wrote:
| damn, Cat 3 is enough to make South Floridians evac north and
| that doesn't cause nearly as much flooding as places like New
| Orleans or TX. They really should evac...
| AdamN wrote:
| This is what I hate about the category system - it's entirely
| wind based and while that's important, rainfall and direction
| of wind (for coasts) is what's most important. Cat 2 can be
| worse than Cat5 also because they move slower so more inches
| of rain per hour.
| interestica wrote:
| Interestingly, the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF) used for
| tornadoes takes into account damage as well as wind speed.
| Maybe something like that would be more appropriate for
| hurricanes. An 'enhanced' saffir-simpson scale?
|
| https://www.weather.gov/oun/efscale
| ddoolin wrote:
| New Orleans is almost below sea level. I'm not sure how much
| good all the preparation would do even if it did get done.
| selectodude wrote:
| Most of New Orleans is literally below sea level.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Ask the Netherlands that question.
| [deleted]
| egypturnash wrote:
| Ain't no "almost" about it, most of the city's like 5' below.
| It's still been there for more than 300 years. The effort put
| into levees and pumps has been heroic.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The levees are sinking too.
| egypturnash wrote:
| _everything 's_ sinking
| samstave wrote:
| You know what's fucked up; the USA.
|
| Recall the student that built a detailed map of critical telco
| infra and was censured by the Gov because it contained "secret"
| infa info even though it was all from public record.
|
| Infra is a joke in the US. Pay attention to whom the funds go
| from the infra bill...
|
| Especially on the micro level: recall that MANY Congress
| officials wives created LLCs during the TARP 2008 "bailout" to
| receive funds with no consequence.
|
| We are seeing the same.
|
| We need a live update on budget appropriations
| samstave wrote:
| Love the downvotes, either by compliant or other:
|
| Senators wives were caught creating LLC "foundations" to
| funnel money from the bailouts to their fake orgs.
|
| It happens, does happen and will continue to happen.
| Clubber wrote:
| Vote out the incumbent every time is the only strategy I
| can think of. If you vote in an honest person, which is
| unlikely, the system will likely corrupt them after a year
| or two.
| meowster wrote:
| It's off-topic, and complaining about votes is against the
| HN guidelines.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| samstave wrote:
| Seriously, get lost...
|
| You've been on HN for 10 months... I've been here 15
| YEARS... I KNOW How this forum works... dang can damn me
| if he so chooses..
| exegete wrote:
| Here's a link regarding the pump outages
| https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_2f508a9e-06b8-11...
| koheripbal wrote:
| > Other nearby stations are expected to have enough capacity
| to pick up the slack
|
| This post seems like fearmongering. Out of 24 pumping
| station, one is out, two are at partial capacity, and the
| other 21 are working at full capacity.
|
| At the individual pump level...
|
| > 96 out of the S&WB's 99 main drainage pumps are ready for
| Ida.
| da_chicken wrote:
| > _What some might not know is that New Orleans is currently
| extremely unprepared for a major hurricane._
|
| Honestly, I think it's a little incredible that someone might
| think they _would_ be prepared. The city was woefully
| unprepared for Katrina, and the only cities I can think of that
| might have a more robust history of political corruption and
| wasted tax dollars are Chicago and Washington, D.C.. Of course
| nothing has changed and they 're entirely unprepared for a
| hurricane.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You know, I have some hope. The Army Corps of Engineers is
| not what I would call a politically charged area of the
| government, and the costs, while substantial, are manageable
| for the work that needed to be done.
|
| https://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/Portals/56/docs/PAO/Brochures.
| ..
|
| "Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the U.S. Army
| Corps of Engineers was authorized and funded to design and
| construct the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction
| System for southeast Louisiana. The Corps strengthened and
| improved virtually all of the levees, floodwalls, pump
| stations and surge barriers that form the 133-mile Greater
| New Orleans perimeter system. The system that is in place now
| is stronger and more resilient than it has ever been in the
| area's history. The new system is capable of defending
| against a 100-year level storm."
|
| "The Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System
| (HSDRRS) is fully funded at $14.45 B."
|
| "Risk cannot totally be eliminated; everyone shares
| responsibility for buying down risk through insurance, zoning
| and building codes, coastal protection and restoration, and
| complying with mandatory evacuations." My emphasis on this
| last statement from the pamphlet I reference. Everyone is
| responsible for working together to derisk.
|
| Lets see what that money bought.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The Katrina scenario was predicted years in advance and
| nobody did anything to protect the city.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Just a few days ago I went to Bound Brook, NJ as the river
| crested the highest it's been since 2005, at around 30.5ft
| on the gauges. This would have previously left most of the
| town, including its main street underwater as it famously
| did during hurricane Floyd. However this time it was
| totally dry due to improvements the Army Corps of Engineers
| completed in 2012. https://www.nan.usace.army.mil/Portals/3
| 7/docs/civilworks/pr...
| grepfru_it wrote:
| I have photos from 1999 when all of bound brook and part
| of somerset was underwater. I was shocked how they
| completely absorbed the recent storm.
|
| Also glad to see central NJ represented on HN!
| vkou wrote:
| The problem with being prepared for tropical storms in the
| gulf is that it takes a few days to get prepared, get people
| evacuated... But 'a few days' isn't enough time for hurricane
| forecasters to reliably predict where a storm will make
| landfall, and how strong that storm is going to be.
| (Sheltering in place against a small storm, that your
| infrastructure is built to handle is the correct play.)
|
| Not to downplay the corruption problem, but if the gulf
| states prepared for every incoming storm, they'd be in a
| constant state of evacuation, and nobody would get anything
| done during hurricane season.
|
| Oh, and evacuations kill people in themselves (Car accidents,
| the sick and infirm, etc, etc). Do too many false alarm
| evacuations, and you'll kill more people than the storms
| would have.
| tacocataco wrote:
| If there is so much uncertainty in living there, why do
| people keep rebuilding in the same spot?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| National Flood Insurance Program and other subsidies.
|
| Private insurance rates should increase and drive out
| residents. Business losses should drive out both business
| and residents.
|
| Without subsidies, I suspect the market would increase
| the COL such that it would lower the population.
| Clubber wrote:
| >Oh, and evacuations kill people in themselves (Car
| accidents, the sick and infirm, etc, etc). Do too many
| false alarm evacuations, and you'll kill more people than
| the storms would have.
|
| I can vouch for this. Deadlocked roads with cars with
| nowhere to go in the middle of summer heat for hours or
| even days on end. Limited gas, limited food and water, no
| proper medical care. Not a safe environment. Evacuations
| aren't in any way risk free.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270472303_Deaths_r
| e...
|
| _There were 111 deaths related to Hurricane Rita in the
| state of Texas. The three direct deaths were from wind
| blown trees. A majority of the deaths (90 /108 or 83.3%)
| were related to the mass evacuation process._
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| I think this is a little bit unfair. New Orleans has an
| incredible amount of infrastructure to prevent flooding
| compared to pretty much any other coastal city. Spillways,
| levees, giant pumps, etc. Even if it fails, you can't really
| claim that they are "entirely unprepared for a hurricane". At
| this particular moment, though, some of that infrastructure
| is weaker than normal.
|
| They definitely have corrupt politicians though, no doubt
| about that.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Most of New Orleans can happily drain what would put
| Houston under 6 feet of water.
|
| And no amount of drainage can do much when you are on the
| east side of a powerful storm. You can have pipes from here
| to the moon but there's nowhere for that water to go. Storm
| surge is concerning to the people in the know for a reason.
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| I lived in New Orleans for 24 years and personally went
| through Katrina - so I actually consider one of the
| people in the know. I still think New Orleans has done
| its share of preparation. Enough? Not sure. But it's not
| like New Orleans is ignorant of how to prepare their city
| for a hurricane.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yeah, I spent my birthday sleeping in a neighbor's gun
| closet after Katrina because he had AC in his apartment
| above his garage. LOL.
| jandrese wrote:
| The 20" of rain isn't nearly as scary as the 11 foot
| storm surge that is possible.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Katrina was a cat 5. It was also _the fourth-most intense
| Atlantic hurricane on record to make landfall in the
| contiguous United States._
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
| blantonl wrote:
| Katrina was not a cat 5 when it made landfall
| hansthehorse wrote:
| It was a category 3 when it made landfall in Louisiana as
| stated in the article the OP linked.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Heh yeah in my experience the only thing New Orleans is well
| prepared for is parties and debauchery. Not that there's
| anything wrong with that :)
| paul_f wrote:
| After $14,000,000,000 was spent, they had better be ready
| NittLion78 wrote:
| Chicago pretty easily unburied itself out of two major
| snowstorms and extreme (even by normal standards) cold snaps.
| At least when it comes to the extreme weather the city faces,
| that part is handled.
|
| General corruption/waste is another matter. Recycling in
| Chicago right now is notably inefficient, for example
| (something like a 9% clearance rate).
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Not to mention that unfunded pensions are an Illinois
| speciality these days.
| da_chicken wrote:
| > _Chicago pretty easily unburied itself out of two major
| snowstorms and extreme (even by normal standards) cold
| snaps. At least when it comes to the extreme weather the
| city faces, that part is handled._
|
| That's not really the question, though. The question is if
| you'd be _surprised_ if they _didn 't_.
|
| I wouldn't be that surprised to hear that Chicago was
| unable to clear snow from a 100-year snow event because the
| funds were mismanaged or something similar. That sounds
| entirely within character.
|
| I wasn't surprised when I heard about the ongoing problems
| with the Texas power grid, either. I was horrified by the
| deaths, of course, but did it _surprise_ me that an for-
| profit utility market didn 't result in a robust
| infrastructure? No. Infrastructure and utilities don't work
| well under those sort of economic pressures. I wasn't
| surprised it was fragile.
| BorgHunter wrote:
| > I wouldn't be that surprised to hear that Chicago was
| unable to clear snow from a 100-year snow event because
| the funds were mismanaged or something similar. That
| sounds entirely within character.
|
| Former Mayor Michael Bilandic famously lost reelection in
| 1979 after botching snow removal following the large
| blizzard of that same year. Ever since, snow removal has
| been one of the city government's core competencies; even
| the quite intense Groundhog Day blizzard of 2011 was
| well-handled, though it managed to shut down LSD for a
| bit. There's plenty of mismanagement and corruption in
| city government to go around (the police department is
| _famously_ corrupt and incompetent and shows no signs of
| turning that around), but snow removal is one thing that
| can generally be counted on here.
| ghaff wrote:
| Weather forecasting today is also _much_ better than it
| was in the 1970s. The Blizzard of '78 in especially the
| Boston area would still be bad and the city might even
| still be largely shut down for a bit, but you probably
| wouldn't have the spectacle of mass evacuation from cars
| on Route 128 because the highway had literally ground to
| a complete halt.
| claaams wrote:
| Good thing southern hospitals have a lot of space for casualties
| right now.. .
| cmpb wrote:
| Yeah it is potentially a really bad situation right now in
| Louisiana. We have been getting our vax numbers up recently and
| the hospitalizations have started to come down in the past week
| or so, but not by much.
|
| With catastrophic hurricanes, though, what I've noticed is that
| we have lots of refugees (and deaths, in the case of Katrina)
| compared to hospitalizations. New Orleans can also turn the
| large arena areas (e.g. Superdome, Zephyr Field) into mass
| casualty and refugee areas immediately following the storm,
| which should help with keeping the hospitals from getting
| overrun.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The problem with refugees is crowding, displacement, lack of
| resources, and lack of communications.
|
| These tend to exacerbate any extant public health situations.
| Given general incompetence concerning Covid in the Southern
| US generally, I've certain concerns.
|
| What was seen in 2020 was a winter wave which kicked off with
| Sturgis in South Dakota, then radiated outwards, toward the
| coasts and south, over the course of the winter, peaking
| around 10 Januare 2021. I've speculated that mass events,
| travel, return to school, and greater indoor activity
| (heating season in the north, as opposed to cooling season in
| the south) also contributed.
|
| This year the US might se a dual hotspot originating in
| Sturgis _and_ Louisiana, both radiating outward.
|
| Something to keep tabs on.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > What was seen in 2020 was a winter wave which kicked off
| with Sturgis in South Dakota
|
| Is there any actual evidence for this?
| dragontamer wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6947e1.htm
|
| Contact tracing + whole genomic sequencing proves that
| these infections in Minnesota came from the Rally,
| despite those individuals never attending the rally.
|
| Those individuals then passed COVID19 to others in
| Minnesota. Etc. etc.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| That's a pretty far cry from "the winter wave started at
| Sturgis."
|
| > Following a 10-day motorcycle rally in South Dakota
| attended by approximately 460,000 persons, 51 confirmed
| primary event-associated cases, 21 secondary cases, and
| five tertiary cases were identified in Minnesota
| residents.
|
| That's a drop in the bucket compared to the community
| spread in the US in 2020.
|
| I'm not saying Sturgis was a great idea, but I am saying
| that the winter wave would have happened regardless.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I was going to make a similar comment, after having drawn
| the association above.
|
| What the study _does_ show is that the Sturgis variant
| was epidemiologically detectable throughout Minnesota
| following the rally. Note that the total number of
| samples was drawn from identified interviewed patients
| only, though this appears to have covered all reported
| cases in MN during the period (August 1 -- August 31,
| 2021). My understanding is that the survey was as
| comprehensive as could be achieved, and not a limited
| sampling.
|
| During the same period, the 7-day average new-daily-case
| rate in Minnesota was 699--795 (rising slightly over the
| course of the month, observed from Worldometers). The
| Sturgis-linked cases were 0.4% _or less_ of total
| confirmed cases.
|
| (I'm assuming the CDC tracing was comprehensive, the
| paper is less than clear on this, though that appears to
| be the case.)
|
| We could make numerous arguments that the study was
| flawed, missed cases, was incomplete, etc. All of that
| would be an argumment from ignorance. And though I feel
| there's _some_ case to be made for suggesting the CDC
| undercounted, that leaves us with a weak basis for any
| further conclusions. Sometimes, though, in epidemiology,
| that 's the best that can be done, and the precautionary
| principle kicks in: what course of action would provide
| the maximum benefit and least harm.
|
| Minnesota's Winter Wave really started spiking in
| _October_ of 2020. It peaked on 20 November at 7,023 NDC
| (7-day average). Whether or not _those_ cases are linked
| to Sturgis would require sequencing of a sample and
| drawing inferences.
|
| That said ...
|
| ... other evidence comes from looking at the spread of
| Covid-19 hot-spots throughout the US from August --
| January of 2020--2021. And that _did_ show the radiating
| pattern I described. I 'm not certain it's associated
| with Sturgis, but it very much walks like a duck.
| dragontamer wrote:
| That study wasn't about finding all the cases that
| originated from the rally. That was just proving that in
| fact, people who never attended the rally got sick with
| the same genomic-markers as the COVID19 present at the
| rally.
|
| Which means that the "spread" of COVID19 from Sturgis ->
| Minnesota cannot be denied.
|
| -------
|
| http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf
|
| Page 60 (Appendix 5) shows a nice graph showing the
| "trendline" of COVID19 cases ("synthetic Meade county"),
| vs Actual Meade county.
|
| We can see that COVID19 cases spiked pretty hard after
| the Sturgis rally. Now maybe there was some "other"
| superspreading event happening in that area at the same
| time... but Occam's Razor points to the giant 400,000+
| person motorcycle rally without any mask precautions
| going on.
|
| ---------
|
| > That's a drop in the bucket compared to the community
| spread in the US in 2020.
|
| But you're right on this front. I think the poster
| earlier is overstating Sturgis's importance. Sturgis is
| just one event, there were plenty of others with far
| bigger spread (February 2020 Marti Gras New Orleans,
| especially because no one took any precautions during
| that event. It was "before COVID19" was well recognized
| by the public)
|
| But without a doubt, Sturgis was a superspreading event.
| But there were _many_ superspreading events happening all
| over the place, so I personally don't want to put too
| much importance on Sturgis alone. The fact remains that
| many other events continued to take place, as that region
| didn't want to take precautions against COVID19 in
| general.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I've read through the study pretty carefully, and it
| _does_ appear to have tried to be comprehensive.
| Specifically:
|
| _All confirmed cases among Minnesota residents were
| reported to MDH. MDH or local public health department
| staff members interviewed patients with confirmed SARS-
| CoV-2 infection to identify exposures and persons who
| might have been in contact with patients during their
| infectious period (2 days before through 10 days after
| symptom onset).* To assess exposures, interviews included
| questions about travel and being in specific settings,
| such as bars or restaurants, schools, health care
| facilities, or events or social gatherings in the 14 days
| before symptom onset. During August-September 2020, MDH
| and local health department staff members interviewed
| >80% of patients with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection._
|
| If the survey missed cases, it wasn't for lack of trying.
| That's not to say it didn't miss some.
|
| (Keep in mind I'm the person who'd suggested the
| relationship above.)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Orleans Parish itself has been tough on COVID. I feel like
| you're belling the wrong cat here.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Louisiana as a whole has not.
|
| And however good Orleans Parish has been, that efficacy
| is likely to get a whole lot worse come Sunday.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/louisiana/
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/louisiana-covid-...
|
| 2,600 hospitalisations presently.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I've been following the storm via Nullschool and its forecast
| model (GFS).
|
| Landfall of the eye has shifted about 40km westward, been delayed
| by about 6+ hours relative to the forecast 18 hours ago, and
| increased in intensity.
|
| The green circle here represents where the eyewall landfall was
| previously forecast to occur at about noon CST. Current forecast
| shows landfall at Jack Stout Bay, south of Morgan City, and
| tracking about 40km west of New Orleans proper.
|
| The area of landfall has been hit by several storms in the past
| several years, is mostly smaller settlements, and there are
| probably numerous already-damaged or only partially-repaired
| structures.
|
| https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/08/29/1700Z/wind/surface/...
| [deleted]
| AdamN wrote:
| The problem is that the eye is not the most damaging part, it's
| the right side of the eye that's funneling water from the Gulf
| onto the land that's got the most damage potential. From that
| link it looks like New Orleans is in a much worse situation
| than if it were to receive a direct hit.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There's that.
|
| A near-westward hit could be more damaging than a direct
| strike, largely based on storm surge and possibly wind
| speeds.
|
| What the maximal high-damage offset distance is I don't know,
| though 20--40km seems sufficiently close to be bad. I'd
| suspect a little _nearer_ would be worse.
|
| And I do wonder just how many more storms Nawlins and the Old
| River Structure have in them.
| dls2016 wrote:
| Whoa! This site is rad! I often thought about making something
| like this. It always seems like the for-pay weather apps are
| crap but all the data is freely available.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I'm a fan :-)
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
| meepmorp wrote:
| Look at a fancy view of the current forecast and other data here:
|
| https://cwcgom.aoml.noaa.gov/cgom/OceanViewer/index_phod.htm...
|
| edit: the sea surface temps are nuts
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Can you expand on that a bit, I don't have any context to
| understand how far out of whack it is?
| baq wrote:
| It's a almost as bad as it could be. The only thing that
| could make this worse is of the hurricane slowed down over
| the gulf and stayed there for a couple days.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > the sea surface temps are nuts
|
| Can you imagine what these temps will look like if the Gulf
| Stream slows/shuts downs as predicted?
| lnwlebjel wrote:
| Wow, hadn't seen this before. Thanks for posting it.
| Fordec wrote:
| Louisiana is just going to lose so much territory between now and
| the end of the century to the ocean. Their shorelines are just
| too shallow to deal with the hurricanes and rising sea levels
| that are coming.
| chooseaname wrote:
| The gulf is HOT right now. And that heat goes pretty deep.
|
| I wonder if we'll see a Michael situation, where Ida just
| continues to intensify as it closes in on land.
| lsllc wrote:
| SSTs are 30-32degC (86-90degF) in the GoM right now:
|
| https://ocean.weather.gov/Loops/SST_GMex_SST/image_202108270...
| dustingetz wrote:
| Sea Surface Temperature
|
| I'm sorry, you're saying the ocean surface is hotter than a
| heated pool right now? What is the baseline?
| brk wrote:
| The GoM gets pretty warm (I live on the water just off the
| GoM proper (Boca Ciega Bay)). Late summer temps in the
| upper 80s or low 90s are common. Our pool used to heat to
| 95 before the shade palms grew up.
|
| I Don think I can recall the surface temp being less than
| 80 often, based on the data from my depth sonar on the boat
| at random times during the 'winter'.
| wcoenen wrote:
| It's not unusual for this time of the year. The thing to
| look at is SSTA (sea surface temperature anomaly), that
| will tell you how much the current temperature is deviating
| from the long term average for this month.
|
| https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/o
| v...
| finiteseries wrote:
| https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/regsatprod/gom/sst_ts.php
|
| ~26C mean ranging from 23C in February to 30C in August.
| lsllc wrote:
| Pretty much. A couple of summers ago I stayed for a late
| August weekend at Hilton Head S.C. and going into the ocean
| was like getting into a hot tub. It was actually too warm,
| not at all refreshing from the 100+F day -- the Hotel pool
| was much cooler.
|
| It was really eye-opening actually.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Isn't that precisely what the model shows it doing?
| b8 wrote:
| I live in Louisiana, and attended Tulane for a while. Some
| streets around Tulane floods after a few hours of rain. I hope
| that every who lives in NOLA or high risk areas just goes ahead
| and leaves for right now. Some people tried to stay and party
| during Katrina. Hopefully folks don't make the same mistake
| twice...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| "Tropical Storm Ida could be close to Category 4 hurricane
| strength when it makes landfall Sunday on Louisiana's coast"
|
| "Sunday is the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina."
| gsibble wrote:
| Oof.
| benatkin wrote:
| It's not a huge coincidence, because it's hurricane season.
| There's a graph here, under "Number of Tropical Cyclones per
| 100 Years": https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/
| jandrese wrote:
| Having Hurricanes reach maximum average strength about the same
| time every year isn't that big of a surprise.
| Karupan wrote:
| Genuine question since I don't live in a city which experiences
| severe weather events annually: what is the financial incentive
| in rebuilding destroyed homes, businesses and other
| infrastructure every few years? Does that actually lead to a net
| positive outcome for those affected in the long run?
| thanatos519 wrote:
| "I live in a city which does not yet experience severe weather
| events annually". FTFY.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Find a map of the rivers that drain into the Mississippi. Think
| about how much shipping still happens on the rivers, despite
| the highway and train networks. Lots of goods pass through
| there, which means lots of money flows through (and all too
| little of it sticks).
|
| New Orleans is the least shitty place to put a port on the
| Mississippi. Or at least it's been that since its founding.
| Rising sea levels and "hundred-year storms" becoming "twenty-
| year storms" may change that.
|
| And also... it's _home_. I grew up there, left for a while,
| came back right before Katrina, and leaving after that ripped a
| chunk of my heart out that I 've only started growing back
| after returning a couple years ago. The place is fucking
| _magical_ for the 347 days out of the year we 're not staring
| down a hurricane that might be aimed right for us. Most of them
| see us staring and decide to go elsewhere.
| i_haz_rabies wrote:
| It's crazy to me how discussions, especially on HN, about
| some place being less livable always produce comments to the
| effect of "why wouldn't they just move." Family, friends and
| history are a tight tie. Probably the tightest and most human
| tie. Extremely understandable.
| Karupan wrote:
| I don't think anyone suggested moving, certainly not me.
| I'm not from the US and have no idea how these annual
| hurricanes affect the south west, hence my question.
| nolaspring wrote:
| Moral hazard has entered the chat.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| The wealth of a society isn't in houses and TVs. It's
| institutions and structures, such as companies, clubs,
| families, universities etc.
|
| That's how you can almost literally wipe a city off the face of
| the earth and see it rebuilt within a decade, think Germany
| after WW2or London/SF/Chicago after fire and earthquakes.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Or NOLA after the Great Fire of 1788, or NOLA after Katrina.
| :)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Most of the time it isn't the same places that get hit. Its not
| as if the same neighborhood is rebuilt year after year, many of
| these places have homes and infrastructure that is 100 years
| old.
|
| Also keep in mind that a majority of the East Coast is under
| threat from Hurricanes. If we just abandoned any area that has
| been severely damaged by a hurricane, there would effectively
| be an unpopulated coastline from Boston to the Mexican border.
| acdha wrote:
| There are steps between doing nothing and abandoning the east
| coast. There are some areas (right at sea level, river flood
| zones) which probably are better off as parks, and letting
| things like costal mangrove forests regrow would be
| important, but there's a lot of places where a significant
| fraction of the existing buildings could remain viable if
| they were sensibly built following good design practice
| rather than as cheaply as the developers could get away with.
|
| It seems like something flood insurance and building codes
| should get increasingly stringent about, similar to how some
| California fire codes started requiring houses to be built to
| support sheltering in place during wildfires so you didn't
| have so many people evacuating and needing to rebuild as many
| homes. It'd be nice if that started as guaranteed annual
| premium increases for unsafe properties with an assistance
| program for primary residences which phases out based on
| property value.
| bitsoda wrote:
| I'm not saying some areas don't suffer huge losses and this
| might be a bit of survivorship bias, but living in Miami for 35
| years, homes built from cinderblock with roofs secured with
| hurricane straps -- which have been part of the building code
| for 30+ years now -- don't really see much damage other than
| the odd missing roof tile and maybe a bit of water intrusion
| from the wind, but it's not as dramatic as the media portrays
| it in _most_ areas.
|
| I'd say the major threats are fallen power lines, downed trees,
| and CO poisoning from generator misuse. We'll get routine
| summer monsoons that bring more damage than some category 1
| hurricanes at times, so unless it's a direct hit from a major
| hurricane I try not to panic too much so long as we have
| supplies.
| whymauri wrote:
| also popular to clear out trees close to the house. some
| people make the rookie mistake of not doing that and end up
| with an open roof during the storm.
| coding123 wrote:
| https://www.windy.com/-Rain-accumulation-rainAccu?rainAccu,3...
|
| Click on "Next 10 Days" near the bottom.
|
| Windy users know about this stuff way farther in advance.
| mastax wrote:
| "People who look at forecast maps" know about this stuff way
| further in advance, surely.
|
| That said, Windy is very good.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "People who look at forecast maps" are way more confused
| about the weather actually happening than those that don't.
| FTFY ;-)
|
| My local forecasts have predicted rain for multiple days in a
| row, and then those days arrive to sunny skies. The same day
| forecasts get updated to reflect the lack of rain, and then
| mid-to-late afternoon storms after zero prediction of them.
| This summer has been a bad luck streak for forecasters.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Windy makes a compelling visualization of data that is often
| totally wrong and misleading. Their presentation of PM2.5
| concentrations in California right now is very pretty and
| also off by about an order of magnitude versus actual sensor
| readings. I will continue to prefer the much uglier but
| correct presentations from NOAA themselves, or the incredibly
| slow but rich and accurate data from wunderground.
| aeroman wrote:
| Windy is an excellent graphical interface, but as I understand
| it, this forecast is a re-packaging of the ECMWF one
| (https://apps.ecmwf.int/webapps/opencharts). The GFS forecast
| (from the National Weather Service) also gets a similar track
| for Ida.
| baq wrote:
| This isn't the best advice, unfortunately. The best advice is
| to follow https://www.nhc.noaa.gov and your local NWS. Model
| forecasts are surprisingly unreliable and each model has its
| own biases, which is why the job of weather forecaster still
| isn't automated. NHC has arguably the best tropical system
| forecasters in the world and their products are publicly
| accessible for all. Follow them first and foremost.
| nolaspring wrote:
| To be fair, I check a number of different forecast sites
| (including Windy) and follow a lot of different weather
| bloggers but no one knew this storm was a thing until a few
| days ago. And all of the models had it as a Cat 2 until
| yesterday.
| joshcrews wrote:
| Another endorsement of Windy. In 2017 Windy knew that Hurricane
| Harvey was going to stall out over SE Texas days in advance.
| cos2pi wrote:
| Windy doesn't make forecasts, rather it visualizes output
| from forecast models.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Yup. You can even choose different models for it to
| visualize!
| [deleted]
| cos2pi wrote:
| For the interested, real-time data from the ongoing aircraft
| reconnaissance into (now) Hurricane Ida can be seen at
| https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/recon
| baq wrote:
| tropicaltisbits.com also hosts the author's blog which is well
| worth following when major storms are present near the GOM.
| [deleted]
| post_break wrote:
| Houston dodging more bullets than Neo in the matrix. I'm glad but
| feel bad for our neighbors.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I mean, we DID get Harvey.
|
| My lay take here is that the flow of the Gulf Stream tends to
| bend the storms to the east as they approach the coast, so you
| get these curveball tracks that, unfortunately,
| disproportionately seem to smack Louisiana and Mississippi.
|
| Harvey came ashore further south, and so the eastward movement
| caught us (though that's a gross oversimplification of Harvey's
| actual mechanics).
| post_break wrote:
| Yeah but Harvey was mostly rain. If we had a category 5 go up
| the ship channel the entire US would be impacted. So much
| oil, fuel, etc goes through here.
| yuy910616 wrote:
| If I remember correctly, he only successfully dodged 2/3
| bullets. And then he started to stopping them
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