09L: Hurricane Ike

[Stuart Robinson]

Bouy now reporting 99.1 knots.. - this means that Ike is now a CAT3

Edit - I did not notice that the anomomter is at 122m (not the requied 10m)

 

[B Ozanne]

If any chasers are lingering on Galveston Island for another few hours double check that your evac routes are dry. I'm seeing helicopter footage of the island showing many roads already covered in water. Not just wash over, but standing water on roads.

Just be familiar with your routes.

 

[Darren Addy]

Thanks for the reports, Warren.
Where are you, Stuart?

 

[Chris Hayes]

Fox News channel just showed a helicopter image of Galveston, and the streets are already flooding. They also mentioned on how the government of Houston has decided against mass evacuations and has told the people of the city to board up their homes God forbid Ike undergoes rapid intensification to a strong cat 3 or cat 4.

 

[B Ozanne]

Fox News channel just showed a helicopter image of Galveston, and the streets are already flooding. They also mentioned on how the government of Houston has decided against mass evacuations and has told the people of the city to board up their homes God forbid Ike undergoes rapid intensification to a strong cat 3 or cat 4.

Lots of water in downtown Galveston already. Mostly up to the curbs, but I've seen cars with water over the wheels.

I wish more people would learn that there are only a couple reasons to evacuate from a hurricane (special situations not withstanding). First is storm surge and second is if you live in a mobile home. Only the flood prone areas of Houston need to be evacuated. Otherwise its impractical to move the fourth largest city in the country away from the wind. New York is on the record saying they will never evacuate.

 

[Chad Ringley]

About to make a last minute run to pick up a couple of things. Satellite presentation seems to be rapidly improving (or I guess for me, looking worse) and I am starting to fear that some intensification is now happening. Looks like its going to be a rough 36 hours.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

About to make a last minute run to pick up a couple of things. Satellite presentation seems to be rapidly improving (or I guess for me, looking worse) and I am starting to fear that some intensification is now happening. Looks like its going to be a rough 36 hours.

I agree, it certainly is looking more like something that would readily intensify and form a more classic inner cane structure...getting rid of that spiraling inner coil stuff. I think the one thing the media doesn't cover enough, or maybe even the forecasts, is the fact when they decide to intensify, to me, it seems like they love to just jump through categories in a hurry. Visible satellite now looks like something that wants to do that.

And I don't know how much I buy what Jim Cantore mentioned, which Joel commented on. Sure the extended winds will stir up the ocean, but don't the wave actions spreading out from canes normally do this as well or better on their own anyway? I don't buy that as the reasoning Ike has had issues.

This storm reminds me of a supercell in a way though. A supercell which the RFD isn't cutting in hard enough to produce, lol. The ones that are *this* close to getting it done, but then linear out, only to repeat. Right now that's exactly what I think looking at the center of this storm. Still has some of that coil in there, but more beefier, and just looks very close to getting it done(round disc with round eye, rather than coil).

 

[Marc Austin]

Good luck to all who have ventured to Galveston/Houston areas to chase this monster! TWC reported that much of Cameron, LA is already underwater. At Sabine Pass, TX water is reportedly over many docks. This is a sign of bad things to come. Stay safe. Ike is a unique hurricane, it will no doubt produce unique damage.

Satellite appearance looking a little more ragged as of 10am. Outflow to west is not looking as good. We'll see what NHC says at 10am.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Missed that one. So a gust barely to hurricane strength, while NHC says sustained winds over that buoy are 80-100mph with gusts to 120mph. Must be a sensor error

Buoy 42001 is just 40 miles from the center and has almost been under the eyewall for quite some time... Never reached sustained hurricane criteria - and barely gusted to hurricane strength. Minimum pressure 960mb so it had to be near the center. Waves to 20 feet.

Dr. Jack Beven (you might recognize his name from the end of those NHC bulletins) posted this in the Gustav thread regarding comments about NHC max sustained winds vs ground truth:

A couple of quick comments on things I saw in the other Gustav thread: First, when we talk about the maximum sustained winds in a hurricane, we are normally talking about one relatively small location in the storm - usually in some portion of the eyewall. It is very rare for the strongest winds to actually pass over an observing site, so in the vast majority of cases the observed winds will be less than what's in the advisories.

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Ike finally is starting to look like it is trying to have an eye that is visible on vis sat. Jamaica Beach is starting to flood and the wave heights right now are 12-17ft on the coast and over topping the sea wall in Galveston. Tyler Constantini and I are here in NW Houston and we are going to head down closer to the coast to take a look but we are staying off the islands. They are trying to drive a dump truck out into Surfside as it seems like there are a few people still in there. The live feed from there on "Local 2" show the water all the way up to near mail box's bottom and it is flowing into the town VERY VERY swiftly. Some of the freeways along the bay from Galveston to Houston are starting to develop standing water on the service roads and side "feeder" roads along the sides of them so if you are still down on the coast or on the island double and triple check that your evac routes are not flooded. The Tunnel off the island is still open. From the heli cam 3005 has a lot of water on top of it so if that was a route for you, take caution to it.

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Awesome streaming out of Houston. You will have to turn down the sound on the ones you don't want to listen to.

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

Amazing surge ALREADY!

 

[Jason Harris]

On one level it seems odd to be talking about a mere Cat. 2 as such a threat, but look at the size of that thing: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GIFS/HUVS.JPG
Galveston residents are claiming surf pounding greater than they've ever seen.


Its outer structure looks to be pulling in moisture from Mexico to way past Cuba (and even Central America?), and is that an eye starting to peak out again?

 

[rdale]

Dr. Jack Beven (you might recognize his name from the end of those NHC bulletins) posted this in the Gustav thread regarding comments about NHC max sustained winds vs ground truth:

That may have been true back "in the old days" - but between Texas Tech and Florida State and DOW sensors - landfall was BLANKETED. And nobody had those sustained winds.

Is that a real eye forming, or just dry air getting entrained?

 

[HAltschule]

yIKEs.

To try and put some of this in persepctive...The water level at Galveston Bay Entrance is 6.40 Feet above Mean Low Level Water (MLLW) at 9:15 CDT.

Buoy 42035 (about 15 miles East of Galveston) is reporting wave heights of 18 feet currently and a sustained wind of 34 MPH. These 18 foot waves are still about 300 miles away from the center of Ike. It should be very interesting to see what the actual storm surge and wave heights will be once the 105 MPH winds of Ike make landfall.

I have a feeling many areas will experience much worse flooding than they are envisioning.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Is that a real eye forming, or just dry air getting entrained?

Looks more like dry air to me, but it did coincide with a flare in convection in the eastern semicircle.