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IJBM: This adorable little thing is heading straight for us [Hurricane Irma thread]
Its specific instance name is "Irma" and it is predicted to have sustained winds of 130 to 156 miles per hour.
(explanation: )
Comments
So, close enough.
That means we are expected to begin getting Adorable Little Thing force winds within 48 hours.
At the moment, Irma is eating the northern barrier islands of Cuba. Outermost wind and rain bands have started to reach as far as Florida, so the breeze is beginning to pick up, albeit not to any bothersome level yet. Still just a little breezy, but breezier than yesterday, based on my cursory observations.
Human activity, meanwhile, is eerily quiet. Everyone's basically hunkered down wherever they are. This is the eve of the storm, which will begin to arrive tomorrow.
I'm looking outside and seeing the clouds move by and thinking, I'm looking at the outermost bands of this storm. And it is a storm of such size that it's not like I can just look outside and see some clouds dropping rain on something in the distance. This is a cyclonic structure that is not just the size of my city or my county, but my state. I can look over to Miami which is about 30 miles in the distance and the eye of this hurricane is wider (about 40 miles) than that. Just the eye by itself. Right now it's still a few hundred miles away but it also has effects that are being felt immediately, albeit very mild ones. Going at the speed of about 14 mph, it'll get here and stay here over the next few days.
A giant, Texas-sized spinning disc of wind and rain. Cerrtainly belongs in the category of Things You Do Not Want To Mess With.
We've just had two separate tornado warnings. At least three separate tornadoes have passed through our county so far.
And the eye of the hurricane is still on the coast of Cuba.
Edit: third tornado warning. Fast and furious.
I REALLY want to open the window to get some fresh air but lord knows I shouldn't.
Broward County is now forecast to get sustained tropical storm wind speeds and gusts of hurricane wind speeds. Today's wind and rain, which are still going on right now, are not the worst yet, which expected to be tomorrow (i.e. Sunday).
The only thing that we're missing is internet service. And I was depending on it for cell service, so that's why I've had very little to say. Right now I've hopped onto a mobile data connection that's both slow AND iffy so don't expect to hear much from me until the net gets reconnected here.
Quick update: net is back up.
1. net went out, and we were depending on net for phone so phone was also out.
2. Ironically, I think my first hurricane (which might have been 1999's Irene, not to be confused with 2011's Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, which I also experienced, albeit in New England, lol) was much rain and not much wind. This time it wasn't much rain but lots of wind.
3. Here in the southeastern part of the state, we basically just got hit with a tropical storm or cat 1 hurricane. We had everything but net so everything's fine here. Nearby neighborhoods noticeably had transformers shorting out. Lots of plant debris on the roads -- and also lots of seeds, so you can tell how these clever things have evolved to hedge their bets in the case of a hurricane or other large-scale wind disturbance.
4. Due to lack of TV and internet access for the past few days I don't yet know the extent of the damage in other parts of the state. From what little I've heard, the Keys at the far southern end of the state were hit hard (the eye made landfall, as a cat 5 hurricane, at Cudjoe Key), with parts of the bridges being washed out. Second landfall also happened at Marco Island in the southwest corner of the state, and the hurricane proceeded to Naples and Fort Myers nearby (along I-75 basically). Tampa (in the middle of the state's west coast) was apparently spared a direct hit. Jacksonville (in the northeastern corner of the state) experienced record flooding, but this was partly due to them having a Nor'easter storm (or what remained of it) right before Irma hit, which caused the water of the St. Johns river to be washed outward and then rush back in, I think, and Jacksonville is apparently built right along its banks.
This is why we must respect nature and understand our humble place in this vast planet of ours, until we have the weather-controlling technology to subjugate it and make it our bitch.
But mostly:
even here in southeast florida there were parts that were inundated. e.g. Brickell Avenue in Miami, due to storm surge.
nearby neighborhoods around here, in the western part of broward county, experienced some minor flooding but it receded within a day, because we're at a higher elevation.
also, this is the first time I've heard the term "nuisance tornados". referring to the fast-moving tornado warnings that came in droves.
normally you don't have weather systems going this fast, but so they'll issue a tornado warning and it'll last for a while as the thunderstorm passes overhead.
but when you have thunderstorms moving past you at like 35 or 70 miles per hour or even faster, even if it generates tornadoes they just go by so fast they barely even register, and there's also so many of these little potentially-tornado-generating cells it's like you have a high-speed parade of these things.