First today,
Tom from St. Thomas finally managed to send an email and a couple of photos out:
“The category 5
hurricane Irma completely devastated St Thomas, St John, Tortola, and other northern
islands of which we have no information. All of the trees were denuded of
leaves, 90% of the power poles were destroyed and 90% of residents’ homes
sustained damage to roofs and windows.
To describe life
after the storm is indeed difficult without photos so I will attach one or two.
The winds hit us
at night and by morning we awoke to a nuclear looking landscape...... No green
leaves, trees and limbs down everywhere, power lines, telephone and cables
twisted every which way across roads making them impassable by car or truck:
(photo credit: Tom J., St. Thomas)
(photo credit: Tom J., St. Thomas)
Day 7 after the
storm and the roads are still showing little improvement as people are trying
their best to just survive with fresh drinking water and basic food, waiting
for crews of men to clear trees and wires.... Huge long lines of people and cars slowly
negotiating the downed power lines and trees of main artery roads. FEMA'S 3
distribution centers and gas stations gridlocked cars looking for open
stores... for 7 days it has been traffic gridlock as people jam the roads
rather than staying put and waiting for recovery efforts to clear roads.
Our home
weathered the storm very well, on top of being lucky that no neighbor's roofs
or large tree debris caused a breach on our roof or walls.
My observations
of the wind and torrential rain gave evidence to believe that the eye of Irma
did not encompass the island but that the southern wall of the eye skirted the
entire north portion of the island of St Thomas. We never observed the
"calm" that Irma's hurricane eye would certainly bring as did Hugo in
89' or Marylyn in 95' showed us.
Recovery efforts
are in effect but they are very slow as distribution of emergency food and
water has been poorly planned.... Thus, you must be prepared
to spend several days after the storm surviving with your own supplies.
We have running
water and lights at night thanks to two small generators that I have kept
maintained, one being from 1995 hurricane Marylyn.
We are doing our
best at age 67 to cope with all of the challenges of this ordeal. And we are
working hard in 88 degree heat to help the wildlife (except mosquitoes) to eat
and stay alive.... birds, lizards, bees, iguanas.”
I am glad that
they and everyone else that I know of survived, but it clearly continues to be
an extremely rough situation and, alas, the season is not yet over.
Speaking of which...
Hurricane Jose
He is still
officially a cat 1 storm with winds of 80mph, central pressure of 973mb (cat 1
range: 74-95mph):
His convection
and his circulation have both improved since yesterday although there isn’t a
good eye at the moment, so I agree with the NHC on their assessment of a cat 1
with around 80mph winds.
He is currently
at 28.9N, 71.9W, heading N at 6mph, and he is forecasted to pass west of
Bermuda and east of most of the US. At this point, I would agree with the NHC
assessment because the models have a better idea of the global pressure fields than I do:
There is some
wind shear, which you can see in this larger infrared satellite image where the
clouds are streaming off to the northeast:
That shear looks
like it will increase ahead of him, so he won’t have much opportunity to be
very strong – a cat 1 seems like a good estimate. Again, this is in agreement
with the NHC.
Tropical Storm Lee
This is the Tropical
Depression from yesterday. He is currently at 12.6N, 34.2W, heading W at 10mph. His convection is about the same and the circulation structure has only marginally improved, so as expected, he is now a Tropical Storm:
The satellite movie for Lee doesn't look as 'smooth' as the others because he is a little too far east at the moment and the images are taken every 3 hours and woven together to make this 'movie' (the 'smoother' movies for storms to the west are woven together from images taken every 30 minutes). At the moment I
think he may take a little more westward track that the NHC forecast shows, but
we agree that he will be moving generally W for at least the next 1-1.5 days:
He is moving
over warm water and there is very little wind shear ahead of him. There is also
not a lot of dry air around him, especially as Maria, with her humid air, is in
front:
I expect that he
will slowly intensify a bit more as there is not too much at the moment to
inhibit that.
We know he is definitely a Tropical Storm because there is a good
vorticity (circulation) signal in the lower half of the troposphere. Click here
and read the Technical Alert! for a refresher on vorticity maps. Here are
the maps at the lowest level of the troposphere (850mb):
In the middle of
the troposphere (500mb):
The upper
troposphere (200mb):
You can see Jose
has a signal in all three, meaning he is a hurricane. Lee, over to the east,
has a signal only in the lower and middle levels, meaning his structure is that
of a Tropical Storm. And Maria… well…
Tropical Storm Maria
She certainly
put a dress and some make-up on since yesterday! This was the Atlantic Blobette
with a pretty poor circulation however, as you can see, that has improved over
the entire troposphere now and she has a small signal in the upper troposphere
as well (not quite as much as Jose though). I would say she is a strong Tropical Storm/barely a cat 1 hurricane at
this point – with winds of around 70-75mph. Officially though, she is a still a
relatively weak Tropical Storm with winds of 50mph, central pressure 1002mb (TS
range: 39-73mph):
You can see that
the convection is not very strong at the moment (not a really solid area of yellow/orange/red in the infrared satellite imagery) – this is because she is
taking in some dry air. But she continues to move over warm water with the sea
surface over 29 deg C, and she is about to enter an area where the upper ~100m
of the water column is warmer than 26 deg C, which will provide her with some fuel. Also, the
wind shear ahead of her is dying down too, which will allow her to grow. I
would not be surprised if she is at least a mid-to-strong cat 1 by tomorrow evening.
She is at 12.4N,
55.0W, heading W at a very rapid 19mph. As for the track. Hmm... I believe there’s a song
about this… “How can you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud
and pin it down?” (The Sound of Music).
Aye aye aye (with much shaking of my head)…
From the limited
data I have, I would agree with the NHC and say we are looking at a WNW track in her short-term future. I'm sorry to say this but the Leeward Islands and Greater Antilles should brace
themselves for another hurricane of some magnitude. Under normal conditions, they would be able to handle a storm like Maria, but under their current situation... eugh!
Time to get a big bottle of wine out.
More tomorrow!
J.
Blogs
archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm
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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
Twitter @JyovianStorm
-------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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