I just came through hurricane Helene

[RemyZee]

What area do you live in? I have cousins along the Gulf Coast that I've been waiting to hear from.

I'm in georgia. Hope you hear soon.

 

[SusanLR]

The barrier islands here by Tampa Bay are only re-opened to residents and business owners. The road that runs through them is cleared wide enough for one car at a time. They are totally covered with sand. I've never seen anything like this before.
It's like the hurricane dug up the bottom of the gulf and dumped it on the land.

The first hurricane I experienced was Elena back in the '80s.
Back then, if a hurricane hit the east coast we didn't worry about it on the west coast.
Now they cover the whole state.


Asheville, NC was a nice get away from the cities resort area. Unbelievable it's destroyed. The videos are terrible to see and still over 600 people unaccounted for.

 

[RemyZee]

On my block, somebody lost the roof, we drove around and saw other damaged homes. This is my third hurricane l have lived thru. Everyone of them is as scary as the one before it. l was outside, and could feel a very intense wind slamming thru. It was frightening. The flooding was just outrageous that people had to endure. It's playing the lottery, it's just you don't want to be in the path of it. l had a hurricane lift up my carport roof in September, in December, a tornado blew thru and moved my carport roof back down again.

Yes, this is my first hurricane and I do know what you mean about the wind literally slamming up against my house like a bit fist. Like running into a wall. I tend to really like storms, but something else entirely when it feels like your house is being sucked off its foundation and you watch your trash bin flying down the street. Literally I hid in my closet all night.

 

[FayetheAspie]

What area do you live in? I have cousins along the Gulf Coast that I've been waiting to hear from.

Have you heard from your cousins yet?

 

[FayetheAspie]

My little sister is surrounded by hurricane flood waters in western North Carolina right now. It's the second time in two years that she has been flooded.

My husband and I got so tired of having power outages where we live near the Gulf of Mexico that we spent $$$$$ to install a whole-house generator and a 500-gallon propane tank in the yard. The public electricity grid can fail and we still have power to run everything in our house. It's a life changer for us old people.

Has the water level went down where your sister lives yet?

 

[Mary Terry]

Has the water level went down where your sister lives yet?

Yes, things are drying out there. She still has no electricity but does have a generator to keep the refrigerator and some fans running. She says it's like camping in her house.

 

[FayetheAspie]

Yes, things are drying out there. She still has no electricity but does have a generator to keep the refrigerator and some fans running. She says it's like camping in her house.

I am glad that her situation is improving. Hopefully the electricity will be repaired soon.

 

[Mary Terry]

Yes, this is my first hurricane and I do know what you mean about the wind literally slamming up against my house like a bit fist. Like running into a wall. I tend to really like storms, but something else entirely when it feels like your house is being sucked off its foundation and you watch your trash bin flying down the street. Literally I hid in my closet all night.

I live far enough inland from the Gulf Coast that we worry more about tornadoes spawned by hurricanes than the hurricanes themselves. When the weather gets really scary here, we hunker down in a closet and close the doors to it in case there is flying glass or other debris. I take some pillows, a quilt, drinking water, flashlights, our medical prescriptions, cells phones and the two cats inside the closet with us. I don't worry about flooding where I live because our house is at a high elevation. If our house and land started to flood, I'd start building an ark!

One of my friends puts on her bike helmet to protect her head from flying debris when she is in her closet during tornado warnings.

 

[AuAL]

Well, carbon dioxide emissions are still recognized as one of the factors. But what do the people actively studying it know, right?



Unfortunately, people are going to keep on making up their own rules and ignoring the science. I think it's a coping mechanism, to be honest, because they don't like to think about how we all technically have a hand in it.

There are also some... powerful people perpetuating comfortable lies, to put it into forum-friendly terms.

In simple terms, hurricanes are heat engines that convert warm ocean water to wind energy. @FilterFreq and @RemyZee, I did some rough, back-of-the-envelope calculations…
The net increase in the heat content of earth’s oceans since 1955 has been estimated at about 360 zetajoules. In 1954, the “Castle Bravo” hydrogen bomb was detonated, releasing about 84,000 terajoules. In the past, nuclear weapon tests were carried out underwater at Mururoa Atoll, in the South Pacific. If all the energy released had been captured in the oceans, then detonating one of these bombs every 10 minutes since 1955 would just about do it.

 

[SusanLR]

Just got the news today and now it's hurricane Milton on the way to Tampa Bay.
Expected to be a Cat2 at least when it arrives.
I live on the peninsula between the Gulf and Tampa Bay.
Don't expect it to flood here but the power outages are what I dread.

If it is a direct hit, I don't want to stick around for the aftermath of no power again.
I plan to leave the area after the storm and spend a few days in some area with no destruction.
The barrier islands are still not open or cleaned up from Helene.
Only the people who live there are going back for now.

 

[Mary Terry]

Just got the news today and now it's hurricane Milton on the way to Tampa Bay.
Expected to be a Cat2 at least when it arrives.

Don't expect it to flood here but the power outages are what I dread.

If it is a direct hit, I don't want to stick around for the aftermath of no power again.
I plan to leave the area after the storm and spend a few days in some area with no destruction.
The barrier islands are still not open or cleaned up from Helene.
Only the people who live there are going back for now.

I hope it fizzles out before landfall but that's not likely. Stay safe, Susan. The ground is waterlogged from Helene so additional rain is going to run off rather than seep into the ground. You're experienced with hurricanes and know that if the storm surge coincides with high tide, many homes will be flooded.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Current track for Milton is headed straight for me. I am inland, but a 4 or 5 as forecast will probably come in at hurricane strength to me.

I will be putting up plywood tomorrow. And I have no idea where the screws are. Hanging out with the end caps and socks I suspect.

It does kinda make me want to cry.

 

[FayetheAspie]

Is there a safer place that you could go?

 

[Aspychata]

Yup, just like @WhitewaterWoman , l am thinking it will cover a good section. We were told to evacuate from zones A-E, which is pretty much everyone. My neighbor asked where are we suppose to go? My partner seems depressed, l hope he survives this hurricane.

 

[Outdated]

Just a curious question. Australia gets a lot of cyclones across it's north coast, a cyclone is exactly the same as a hurricane except it spins in the opposite direction. A cyclone usually brings a lot of rain, but I noticed living in Darwin that whenever North Queensland was having a cyclone it sucked all the rain out of weather systems around Darwin, and when Darwin gets a cyclone North Queensland misses out on rainfall. A few years back Queensland got three huge cyclones in one season and lost 6 million head of cattle in the floods, and during that time Darwin near suffered a drought.

So When Florida and your east coast are getting hurricanes who is it that loses out on rainfall? Or does that not happen there?

 

[FayetheAspie]

@

Just a curious question. Australia gets a lot of cyclones across it's north coast, a cyclone is exactly the same as a hurricane except it spins in the opposite direction. A cyclone usually brings a lot of rain, but I noticed living in Darwin that whenever North Queensland was having a cyclone it sucked all the rain out of weather systems around Darwin, and when Darwin gets a cyclone North Queensland misses out on rainfall. A few years back Queensland got three huge cyclones in one season and lost 6 million head of cattle in the floods, and during that time Darwin near suffered a drought.

So When Florida and your east coast are getting hurricanes who is it that loses out on rainfall? Or does that not happen there?

Interesting question. I don't know.

 

[Jacks Brain]

Just a curious question. Australia gets a lot of cyclones across it's north coast, a cyclone is exactly the same as a hurricane except it spins in the opposite direction. A cyclone usually brings a lot of rain, but I noticed living in Darwin that whenever North Queensland was having a cyclone it sucked all the rain out of weather systems around Darwin, and when Darwin gets a cyclone North Queensland misses out on rainfall. A few years back Queensland got three huge cyclones in one season and lost 6 million head of cattle in the floods, and during that time Darwin near suffered a drought.

So When Florida and your east coast are getting hurricanes who is it that loses out on rainfall? Or does that not happen there?

Pretty sure they pick up all their water and energy from the ocean and lose it when they make landfall.

 

[Aspychata]

Cyclones spin opposite of our hurricanes, that explains why your toilets spin opposite l guess from American toilets, it must be a global conspiracy at play here.

 

[jsilver256]

So When Florida and your east coast are getting hurricanes who is it that loses out on rainfall? Or does that not happen there?

If there is a "rain sucking" effect on the USA, I've never noticed. But I can take an educated guess here.

I looked at Australia cyclone paths. Your cyclones tend to form parallel to your continent's coastline before making landfall. So it makes sense that they "suck" in other rain systems.

Almost all of our hurricane activity takes place way out in the ocean, away from any land, and then it hits the continent, bam. There's very little to suck up from the continental USA.

Note that Florida is a very wet state in general. Thunderstorms and rains are an almost daily occurrence. And I don't know what it is with the soil or what, but the couple of hurricanes I've been through, the water was gone in a matter of hours. And they have a very very good system for repairing damage quickly and getting lights back on.

Don't get me wrong - Milton will be horrible - it is just that FL is best positioned of any state to do so.

It is the other states that suffer a lot more, like TN and NC are taking the brunt of suffering from Helene.

 

[Outdated]

Thank you, that was helpful.

Almost all of our hurricane activity takes place way out in the ocean, away from any land, and then it hits the continent, bam. There's very little to suck up from the continental USA.

You also have very deep ocean right up to your coast which makes you more prone to tidal surges and tsunamis. Australia is surrounded by a couple of hundred kilometres wide continental shelf. Shallow seas don't support huge waves, but it also means oceans get more warmed by the sun and more cyclones form there. That continental shelf shows in google maps.

And after looking at the US in the same way I see you have just as wide a shelf, another thing I was taught in school that is wrong.

Note that Florida is a very wet state in general. Thunderstorms and rains are an almost daily occurrence. And I don't know what it is with the soil or what, but the couple of hurricanes I've been through, the water was gone in a matter of hours.

This is also true for the top end of Australia. I've seen it rain 8 inches in an hour and another hour after that there's hardly any puddles left. The water table actually comes up to ground level in a good year though, and I've seen a few idiots make the terrible mistake of draining their in-ground pool to clean it in the wet season, the pool floats up out of the ground and the hole it left behind collapses.

Darwin is less than 12 degrees from the equator. I just did a bit of map checking of my own, Miami is 27 degrees from the equator which puts it about on par with Brisbane. Sub tropical, gets a wet season but also gets a mild winter. Very few of our cyclones go down that far south, they mostly run east west across the top of the country.