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NOW: Hurricane Rita

Originally posted by beaudodson
New lightning strikes being detected in the eyewall now.
Click to expand...

It's interesting how perfectly that longgggg ERC was timed so that shes going to be doing nothing but strengthening as she approaches the coast.
 
Originally posted by Sam Sagnella+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sam Sagnella)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-beaudodson
Click to expand...
New lightning strikes being detected in the eyewall now.
Click to expand...

It's interesting how perfectly that longgggg ERC was timed so that shes going to be doing nothing but strengthening as she approaches the coast.[/b]
Click to expand...

It appears she is a VERY dangerous hurricane this evening.
 
I personally would be very surprised to see Rita regain CAT4 status. She's been fighting what looks like a losing battle with dry air to the N and W, along with lower heat content waters. The CDO is lopsided, with occasional flares of convection on the west side. Bands of dry air keep manifesting themselves on the north side, and each one results in a significant erosion of the CDO on that side...just look at some longer-range WV loops like those on UCAR and you'll see what I mean.

Plus, she keeps meandering to the right of the NHC track, even with the number of wobbles she's gone through. I have a gut feeling she'll plant herself in the vast swamplands of extreme SW LA, maybe slightly east of Port Arthur. For now my landfall guesstimate is about on top of Port Arthur, around 5am local time, 110kts or less.
 
Look how C O L D these cloudtops are in the western eyewall; if she continues to generate intense convection all the way to the coast, not only will she likely be strengthening, but movement will likely be erratic (near constant 'wobbles').

IMO, there's no way she comes ashore under 140mph.


 
Originally posted by Sam Sagnella
Look how C O L D these cloudtops are in the western eyewall; if she continues to generate intense convection all the way to the coast, not only will she likely be strengthening, but movement will likely be erratic (near constant 'wobbles').

IMO, there's no way she comes ashore under 140mph.
Click to expand...

Sure it's C O L D. But it's nothing like the persistet, symmetric, < -74°C CDO we saw even up to yesterday. Also, the eye looks like crap on IR. It's wobbly looking, doesn't look symmetric. If the eye looks crisp and resembles a golf hole that you could putt into, then you got one hell of a Cat 4+ storm. Andrew looked like this when it slammed south Dade County in 1992. Rita will come in similar to Katrina, a larger Strong Cat 3 hurricane with max winds probably 115-120mph but 75mph winds spread out quite a ways.

Mike U
 
Myself and Jay McCoy have been here in Beaumont since about 6 am. We are holed up in one of the hospital parking garages where the police are also taking shelter.

The drive down was quite....interesting...to say the least.

We tried earlier to go down to Port Author to get some early surf shots but the water in the ship channel was already up to the side of the road and we didn't want to chance it covering the road and cutting us off out there so we headed back. The whole area is pretty much deserted when you drive around.

It's been relatively calm here and only started raining a couple hours ago. A few strong gusts but nothing serious sustained yet.

We have enough food and water for 5 days and about 50 gallons of gas so we are good for a while. Gonna be a long, wet night!
 
I don't know what to make of the situation... I had been expecting strengthening was the previous ERC finally ended this mornign, but the eye has not stabilized since then. It appears that it may be in another ERC... Latest VORTEX has 930mb with three eyewalls -- at 80, 30, and 20mi. If the 20mi eye is dissipating now, there may be a chance at strengthening, but we'll still have two concentric eyewalls. The window for stregnthening is beginning to close I believe, given the storm's proximity to land. If the eye can stabilize, I think she can still make it down to 920mb. That's an IF, however.
 
Here's the latest recon vortex msg:
URNT12 KNHC 232322Z
VORTEX DATA MESSAGE
A. 23/2303Z
B. 28 DEG 28 MIN N
92 DEG 54 MIN W
C. 700 MB 2492 MA
D. NA
E. NA
F. 151 DEG 121 KT
G. 061 DEG 17 NM
H. 930 MB
I. 12 C/ 3050 M
J. 20 C/ 3061 M
K. 15 C/ NA
L. OPEN E-SW
M. E 080-30-20
N. 12345/7
O. 1/1 NM
P. NOAA3 2318A RITA OB 31
MAX FL WIND 121 KT NE QUAD 2258Z
MAX FLT LVL TEMP 060/10 NM FROM CNTR

Note the 3 concentric eyewalls at 80, 30, and 20 nm, which is consistent with the radar presentation. I think what we have been seeing on radar in the last couple of hours is a collapse of the inner eyewall and replacement by the next outer one. From what I can tell, this is the second eyewall replacement (the first one more or less completed earlier this morning). It remains to be seen if the storm can stabilize the new eye before landfall, or if the next outer one begins to encroach on it.
 
Some really nice storm surge inundation maps are available for the Port Arthur and Beaumont areas:
http://www.pcwp.com/pdf_files/RA%20report%...on%20County.pdf

Looks like the northeast part of town is the best place to be, but nowhere in that town is safe in a CAT5 surge.

BTW, anyone else noticing the big push of the eye almost due north on the Lake Charles radar? If that keeps up, everyone in Beaumont/Port Arthur will be on the weaker west side. Safe from surge I guess!
 
I don't see the strengthening that some of you are talking about. It looks to me like this storm is slowly collapsing. It will be interesting to see if it will make it down to a cat 2 and hit south of Lake Charles like I have been saying the past few days. That poor little town of Cameron, La is as good as gone. I can't say that I have ever been in that area, but I can't imagine it being more than a little fishing town in the swamps. We could quite possibly see some surge make it up into southern parts of Lake Charles and the Port Arthur area could still see significant surge from the bay.

I'm very glad that this will not be affecting the more populated areas of Galveston and Houston and that the storm weakened 50 mph since Wed. Katrina might have been the second worse catastrophy in history had Rita maintained her strong cat 5 and made a direct landfall in Galveston Bay. looks like I will be up late watching this one roll in. I would think landfall would be around midnight since the eyewall usually comes ashore a bit quicker than expected when less than 100 mile from land. Good luck to those of you chasing and be careful.
 
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