Tim Vasquez
EF5
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2003
- Messages
- 3,411
I've been trying to piece together what's going on in New Orleans this morning, and the media seems to be doing a mediocre job gathering what's going on.. it's as if there's just one reporter in New Orleans, and he's watching the Superdome roof. Obviously the communications infrastructure is down, but if we're getting news like that one would think more info would be pouring out. Anyhow...
* WSR-88D velocity is parallel to wind across New Orleans area and shows a 30-mile wide swath of 64+ kt winds across the city (as high as it can detect with current scan strategy). The max wind band looks much larger on the eastern quadrant, which suggests Gulfport MS westward is due for a lot of damage.
* The T1 tower, 10 miles south of New Orleans, reported up to 105 mph at 6:32 am this morning and has subsided to the near-100 mph range out of 320 deg (northwest). Given current storm motion, extrapolation suggests the highest winds would have moved into New Orleans at 7:30 am (an hour ago). However CNN is reporting via Jean Meserve (8:50 am) that New Orleans is getting its worst wind at this moment -- "incredible rain, punishing winds", considerable damage, and 2 ft of flooding outside the Superdome with an oil slick in the flood waters.
* Currently (8:30 am) New Orleans is closest to the eyewall.
The report from CNN was nice -- we need to hear more of that.
I do think we should see the wind subside dramatically in New Orleans in a couple of hours as the eyewall region moves out. I'm not sure if the surge can get any worse or if levees can still fail, but I figure they'll be out of the woods by noon.
Tim
* WSR-88D velocity is parallel to wind across New Orleans area and shows a 30-mile wide swath of 64+ kt winds across the city (as high as it can detect with current scan strategy). The max wind band looks much larger on the eastern quadrant, which suggests Gulfport MS westward is due for a lot of damage.
* The T1 tower, 10 miles south of New Orleans, reported up to 105 mph at 6:32 am this morning and has subsided to the near-100 mph range out of 320 deg (northwest). Given current storm motion, extrapolation suggests the highest winds would have moved into New Orleans at 7:30 am (an hour ago). However CNN is reporting via Jean Meserve (8:50 am) that New Orleans is getting its worst wind at this moment -- "incredible rain, punishing winds", considerable damage, and 2 ft of flooding outside the Superdome with an oil slick in the flood waters.
* Currently (8:30 am) New Orleans is closest to the eyewall.
The report from CNN was nice -- we need to hear more of that.
I do think we should see the wind subside dramatically in New Orleans in a couple of hours as the eyewall region moves out. I'm not sure if the surge can get any worse or if levees can still fail, but I figure they'll be out of the woods by noon.
Tim