I was under the weather last week rather than writing about it, and traveling the previous week, but there have continued to be notable goings-on in the tropics.
So I guess this could be considered several blog entries in one, with a bunch of info on these recent and ongoing events as well as an update on the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, including a compelling account of a resident's return to the Bolivar Peninsula.
OMAR
First, the most pressing matter at hand because it's future tense, not past tense: Tropical Storm Omar. Even if it were to not intensify much wind-wise, the system has the potential to bring prodigious amounts of rainfall to portions of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This is coming on the heels of the disturbance which brought flooding a couple of weeks ago and went on to eventually become Hurricane Kyle.
We'll be closely monitoring the progress of this system.
[Update 11pm EDT Tue Oct 14: Omar is now a hurricane.]
In the meantime, looking back, here's a quiz ...
Find the tropical cyclone(s) on this NOAA satellite image from last week:
Yes, there was one in the lower-left (southwest) corner. That was Norbert. Was there another one? I'll get to that in a moment ...
NORBERT
Hurricane Norbert made landfall Saturday on the Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula as a 105 mph Category 2 hurricane.
Although the brunt hit a relatively unpopulated area, some reports of damage were received, and this was a remarkable hurricane meteorologically.
With the caveat that the historical tropical cyclone intensity data in the eastern Pacific may be even dicier than that in the Atlantic basin, and like the Atlantic is certainly iffy prior to the satellite era which commenced in the 1960s ... this map of October hurricanes from the NOAA database (on the map, red = hurricane intensity), which goes back to 1949 in the eastern Pacific, shows that Norbert was:
--The first hurricane to make landfall in October in 40 years on the Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula.
--The latest-in-the-season hurricane landfall there.
--The strongest hurricane to landfall in October there.
Here's a list of 'em:
Norbert 2008 -- Oct 11 (105 mph Cat 2)
Pauline 1968 -- Oct 2 (85 mph Cat 1)
Hurricane #11 1958 -- Oct 3 (85 mph Cat 1)
Hurricane #10 1957 -- Oct 4 (85 mph Cat 1)
Norbert is not quite, however, the latest or strongest October hurricane to make landfall on the peninsula. Oddly, Olivia in 1967 was a tropical storm when it made landfall from the Pacific, but then intensified rapidly into a Category 3 hurricane over the Gulf of California before turning westward and striking the Peninsula on the east side. (While a little hard to tell from the data on which date landfall occurred, it appears to have been just after midnight PT on the 14th.)
Norbert quickly dissipated after making a second landfall, on the coast of mainland Mexico, although some of its upper-level moisture streamed northeastward over the U.S. and got involved with the wild storm system over the western and central U.S.
And in turn, the upper-level trough associated with the snowstorm gave Hurricane Norbert an "outflow channel" which helped it maintain its intensity as much as it did up until landfall.
MARCO
Hurricanes Katrina and Ike represent the humongous extreme of how large in size tropical cyclones can be over the Gulf of Mexico, and Tropical Storm Marco, which briefly spun up last week, was the opposite. Yes, there was another tropical cyclone on that image above, over the extreme southwest Gulf of Mexico.
It brought back memories of 2007's Lorenzo, which, by the way, also came out of a T.D. #13! Although Marco didn't have as much wind as Lorenzo (Marco didn't become a hurricane) and it didn't bring as much rainfall (there was some flash flooding but not of the deadly magnitude as Lorenzo's), the two cyclones were remarkable for the similarities in their location and size.
MARCO 2008
LORENZO 2007
At one point, Marco was estimated to have tropical storm force winds extending out as much as only 10 miles from the center, which may be the smallest amount on record in the world given that Cyclone Tracy in Australia has been noted as the smallest, with 30 miles.
Tracy's structure arguably was more remarkable, though, because it was a much more intense cyclone with extreme hurricane winds that devastated the city of Darwin, Australia, so it's amazing that tropical storm-force winds only extended out 30 miles from the center.
IKE
Compare that to Ike, whose tropical storm force winds extended out from the center as far as 275 miles! It's been awhile since I wrote about Ike's catastrophic impact, and here's an update.
As expected, early reports of Ike's surge being an underachiever were premature, as the coastal water rise is now officially analyzed to have been as high as 15-20 feet. Even in Galveston the rise is now estimated to have been up to 13-14 feet from the Bay/Gulf, accounting for the inundation there despite mitigation of the surge/waves by the seawall.
Although many of the surge heights are estimates as opposed to precise tide gauge measurements, that's because many those gauges failed before the peak was reached, and the estimates are based on comprehensive site surveys and observed high water marks.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the latest post-hurricane report from the Houston office of the National Weather Service. The full report is here, and the one from the Lake Charles office is here. Each office also has a website with other info, radar/satellite imagery, etc. here and here, respectively.
In Chambers County:
700 HOMES ISOLATED DUE TO ROAD CLOSURES...HIGH WATER. 700 HOMES DESTROYED...3418 WITH MAJOR DAMAGE...3252 WITH MINOR DAMAGE. 15 BUSINESSES SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE. MOST SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE WAS DUE TO STORM SURGE WITH HARDEST HIT AREA BEING SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF THE COUNTY ADJACENT TO THE GALVESTON BAY DUE TO STORM SURGE FLOODING. BASED ON DEBRIS HIGH WATER MARKS APPEARS AREAS UP TO 17 MILES INLAND OF THE BAY WERE INUNDATED...WITH SURGE ESTIMATES OF 15 TO 20 FEET ALONG THE NORTHERN REACHES OF THE BAY. MOST DEBRIS APPEARS TO HAVE WASHED OVER FROM THE BOLIVAR PENINSULA.
In Galveston County:
NUMBER OF FATALITIES DIRECTLY RELATED UP TO IKE 7 AS OF OCTOBER 5TH. THERE WERE 8 OTHERS WHOSE
DEATH WAS INDIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE STORM...EITHER DUE TO CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING OR DUE TO LACK OF ACCESS TO DIALYSIS. NUMBER OF FATALITIES MAY INCREASE AS MORE THAN 50 REMAIN MISSING FROM THE HARD HIT BOLIVAR PENINSULA...WITH OTHERS MISSING FROM OTHER COASTAL SECTIONS.
MAJOR DAMAGE OCCURRED DUE TO STORM SURGE AND HIGH SURF ALONG COASTAL AREAS FACING THE GULF OF MEXICO AND GALVESTON BAY. WATER DAMAGE DUE TO COASTAL FLOODING ALSO OCCURRED ALONG ADJOINING RIVERS...LAKES AND BAYS. HARDEST HIT AREA WAS BOLIVAR PENINSULA...WHICH WAS TOTALLY INUNDATED BY THE SURGE...WITH NEARLY ALL HOMES DESTROYED.
GALVESTON ISLAND...INCLUDING THE TOWN OF GALVESTON...ALSO SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE. NWS STORM SURVEY ESTIMATED A STORM SURGE OF APPROXIMATELY 13 FEET ON THE BAY SIDE AND 14 FEET ON THE GULF SIDE NEAR THE TOWN OF GALVESTON ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE ISLAND. ON THE WEST END...ON THE GULF SIDE THE SURGE WAS ESTIMATED TO RANGE FROM AROUND 8 FEET ON THE FAR WESTERN PORTION...TO CLOSE TO 10 FEET NEAR JAMAICA BEACH. BAY SIDE STORM TIDES WERE ESTIMATED TO BE 13 TO 14 FEET ON THE BAY SIDE NEAR JAMAICA BEACH.
ALONG THE GALVESTON BAY...MAJOR DAMAGE DUE TO SURGE AND WAVE ACTION WAS OBSERVED NEAR KEMAH AND SAN LEON. ALONG THE KEMAH BOARDWALK...SEVERAL BUSINESSES SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE. HIGH WATER MARKS WERE OBSERVED NEAR 10 FEET ON EAST FACING PORTIONS OF THE LEVEE SURROUNDING TEXAS CITY...BUT NEAR THE TOP OF NORTHEAST FACING PORTIONS OF THE LEVEE SUGGESTING A SURGE OF AT LEAST 16 FEET THERE. SIGNIFICANT WATER DAMAGE WAS OBSERVED IN THE COMMUNITY OF CLEAR LAKE SHORES...WITH ALL HOMES IN THE COMMUNITY SUFFERING WATER DAMAGE DUE TO INUNDATION. STORM TIDE ESTIMATES OF 12 TO 14 FEET WERE ESTIMATED FROM WATER MARKS AND SURVEYED ELEVATIONS.
And, lastly, via a relative of a TWC colleague, I became aware of this email description of a resident's return to the Bolivar Peninsula. Thanks to Claude Hamerly, I am reprinting it with his permission:
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We left early last Thursday heading to Crystal Beach. We went from Orange on Highway 87 through Bridge City and into Port Arthur. In Port Arthur we got on Highway 73 heading towards Winnie; all looked O.K. until we got past Taylors Bayou.
The highway was cleared out but the debris was piled up as high as 6 feet in some places along the road. The debris was mainly marsh grass, with some boats and dead alligators mixed in, also tons and tons of drying mud. At Winnie we got on Highway 124 heading towards High Island.
The landscape along here seemed to look in fairly decent condition. After going through High Island we again got on Highway 87 going towards Crystal Beach. CATASTROPHIC UNBELIEVABILITY. There was nothing there that we could recognize. The road was cleared off, some places the road was missing. The marsh grass, sand dunes, salt grass, wildflowers, etc. were gone. The landscape was nothing but grayish mud and dirty-looking sand; it reminded us of something you might see in an old science fiction movie.
As we got closer to Gilchrist we began to think, "O.K. this is where we should begin to see signs of humanity." If you consider a few pilings sticking up out of the sand, a bunch of vehicles half buried under the mud and sand, now and then a roof half-buried where the cattle used to graze, and any type of household item you can imagine just lying anywhere and everywhere, then yes we did recognize humanity.
We did not count the number of structures still standing at Gilchrist but after we got home and were talking we came to the conclusion that maybe there might have been a dozen, with maybe 3 or 4 being repairable. At Rollover Pass we were stopped to show proof of ownership and an identification for myself. After being checked through we crossed Rollover on a very narrow single slab of broken concrete that had been checked out for strength; it must be stronger than it looks.
As we were heading towards Crystal Beach we noticed that two other of our high school classmates beach homes were totally wiped out. They were located at Caplen Shores. The only way you could keep up with where you were was because there were a lot of homemade signs at the entrance of what used to be roads telling what road it was.
All of the way from Rollover Pass to the water tower in Crystal Beach was total devastation. We found our chunk of land fairly easy because the new brick Post Office is the landmark we used. We can see the post office from our yard. When we pulled up in front of our place we decided we would have been better off on horseback because there were now about six stout poles sticking up out of the earth to hitch horses to. Hey, we came out pretty good, we didn't have a cabin but we did have lying around on our lot some stuff that we didn't have before: a couple of saltwater logged riding lawnmowers, a slightly used shower stall with some plumbing still attached, various sized pieces of lumber, fiberglass, tin, roofing, siding, plastic lattice work, decking etc.
Our property is on Ave. B and the last road before you get to the Gulf is Ave. J. With houses on both sides of the road that's about 16 rows of houses between us and the beach. We can now stand anywhere on our property and see the beach, as all of the houses are GONE. I'm not saying that the beach is closer to our property, I'm saying that all the cabins are GONE.
Not every building on Bolivar Peninsula was totally destroyed. just a very high percentage of them. We walked over a lot of the surrounding land trying to find something that would be a keepsake for us. We found nothing. Maybe our stuff made it all the way to the Bay and had a decent sea burial.
We had taken sandwiches and Cokes and tried to sit out in lawn chairs to have a nice "picnic" but the biting flies were so bad that you could not stop moving for more than a couple of seconds so we got back in our pickup and ate in the air-conditioning. After we finished eating we sat there a few minutes looking around at many years of good memories, then looked at each other and simultaneously said "Lets go home."
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LATE TUE EVE ADDENDUM
From the Associated Press:
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Former presidents Bush, Clinton tour Ike damage
Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have asked Americans not to forget about the Gulf Coast communities hit hard this hurricane season.
They toured the area by helicopter Tuesday, flying over Galveston Island and the storm-wrecked Bolivar Peninsula. They were then updated on the ongoing repair and recovery efforts after Hurricane Ike.
During a brief meeting at a community center that's been turned into FEMA headquarters, local officials asked Bush and Clinton to use their influence in any way to help them get aid to rebuild the region's tourist economy.
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