We need more Names
 

BTW, the Pacific also has a tropical storm. The 16th this year. Three are currently in the Atlantic.

Once upon a time, an active hurricane season was four storms. 1960 meant Donna (fourth storm) was an unusually active season. Donna was particularly large - a category three. Hurricanes rarely got beyond the letter C.

Today a normal season is over 10 storms. Ten is a quiet year. 2005 was so active that the hurricane center ran out of name; resorted to using Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma .... Epsilon, and Zeta. That was 31 tropical storms of which 28 became hurricanes.

The Don says global warming does not exist. This is normal. It must be true. The Don says so.

We just need a longer alphabet. Apparently the Russian alphabet has 33 letters -maybe The Don could ask hit buddy The Vlad if we can use that one?

Dr. Seuss has us covered there. Look out for Hurricane Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz.

Nazareth is ready w/a similar name.

Inspired by tw's original post, I went to find out what the actual science says about the number of Atlantic hurricanes and global warming.

The definitive look at this is presented by the Geographical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at NOAA: "Global Warming and Hurricanes: An Overview of Current Research Results", revised June 2018.

The current science says:


TL;DR: top scientists agree, the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes cannot be attributed to global warming. It should theoretically increase them a bit, and may in the future. It's somewhat possible it may have changed how they operate in the Pacific. But so far, warming, in the Atlantic, no.

What? But the number of named tropical storms and hurricanes has increased!

Yes; and NOAA concludes, it's because we didn't notice them as much back in time. In the mid-60s, our ability to detect storms started to rise dramatically, when we worked out how to launch satellites to study the planet. Before that, a lot of storms were only found when ships at sea encountered them.

Are you saying AGW is a sham?!

No, I have earlier posted evidence of it. The satellites also find the warming.

Estimating the potential impact of climate change on Hurricane Florence

I say they are weapons of mass destruction, and we know they come from western Sahara, Mauritania, Morocco, and Algeria. So obviously we should declare war on Africa. USA! USA!

We'll see if the NOAA folks concur.

Update, what will the Stony Brook folks say about the weakening?

This wasn't supposed to happen... damn storm, not following the narrative. Now it looks like the non-climate change version... what to do??

via @HellerWeather on twitter

Seeing a horizontal band of storms really made the "tropical storm" part clear for me.


re: florence weakening -- isn't that just the wind speed dropping? their paper was about rainfall and area.

They mention a longer time classified at a high category in the summary. The "intensity" graph is air pressure, rather than windspeed, but they're related. The "size" graph is also indirectly related to windspeed, as the "edge" of the storm is where the wind is 18mph. Not directly related, as a storm can "spread out", and become bigger while losing maximum windspeed.

I was a kid in SE Texas when Hurricane Carla showed her ugly face. A big limb from the crabapple tree in the backyard came through our living room ceiling. Wheeee! Dad (god bless 'im) got up on the roof with a tarp and tried to cover the hole/limb the best he could, just to keep the pounding rain out of the house. Didn't help much, but I have a very vivid and lasting memory of that day, and I was only 3.

Another memory from a later hurricane (Betsy?) . . . riding my bike through the flooded neighborhood streets, hitting a submerged something, and taking a face-first header into the water.

Ah. Good times, good times.

As for new names - why do they have to have people names? Why can't we start using names like Devil Dog, Big Mammajamma, or Get Out While You Can! ?

Live webcam of Florence arriving 34 miles off the coast (mute your speakers):

Ne'ermind, it's basically gone. Here's what it looked like about 15 minutes ago, right after the color died...

Apparently people in the YouTube chat (I had no idea that was a thing) had named the flag Kevin, and were lamenting his apparent demise.

It hits as Cat 1. Well, this won't affect NOAA's math.

But this doesn't actually prove anything, and is now a retarded game of appealing to everyone's observational bias, as is pretty much the entire debate.

In this case, I sided with NOAA and the IPCC and y'all took issue with them. It's all good, I've taken issue with them before. But is that not science denial, when we do that?

Who's "y'all" here? gvidas asked whether the category of the storm was referenced in the paper, and I answered that it was. None of the other posts after yours referenced it at all.

I saw it like this, I could be wrong

Me: NOAA surveying IPCC and others says warming hasn't been a hurricane factor

You two: This one study says it is a big time factor on this one tho

*shrug* it's fine

You: How does the lowering of the storm classification affect the Stony Brook study?
Gdivas: Storm classification is wind speed, doesn't the Stony Brook study talk about rainfall?
Me: Stony brook study mentions storm classification in its opening paragraph, and two of its graphs are wind-speed-related.

That's the scariest thing I've read this year!

:p::p:

Florence probably will not be the coastal disaster it could have been. Apparently a large body of warm water off the SC / NC coasts on the first week of September was no longer as warm. So Florence weakened.

Wave heights on serious storms (ie Frying Pan Shoals) was 30 feet. Except for some 20 something waves far north on Frying Pan Shoals, waves across the region (and even near the eye) have been 15 feet or less.

Expect coastal damage to not have been as severe as originally feared. And residents will mock those warnings; ignore future ones.

Frying Pan Light tower had long since been abandoned due to maintenance deficiencies (over a decade ago) and with no future purpose.

Next learn how much rain really does fall and how many SC towns could not be bothered to let good engineering practice occur in their infrastructure.

As a matter of fact Frying Pan Tower is for sale, $25,000 per share.

Why would anyone spend $25,000 for the right to spend massively more disassembling that tower?

Six of those towers were built in the 1960s. Two were struck by ships. The one outside Savannah was struck so massively by a container ship as to be completely destroyed. Ambrose tower (entrance to NYC) was struck by a ship. Replaced. Then struck as least twice more before it was finally removed. Spend $25,000 for the right to own that risk.

US Navy are not the only mariners that ignore where they are going.

How much to buy into obligations for Diamond Shoals Tower? Then you too can be a first one to view 30 foot hurricane waves before they break on beachfront houses.

I don't care what you say. It is still raining and I am sick of it. I went out and cleaned debris from the culvert under the drive. Other than that I am in the house with the dog and cats. I'm fixing to kill my sorrows with a cup of noodles and hot sauce.

Here is a full alphabet of names for them. I wouldn't be sorry if any of these got retired. Just so long as they're retired for humans too :D

Ava
Ben
Chloe
Davon
Emily
Fuck
Grayson
Hunter
Isabella
Jayden
Kyan
Liam
Mia
Noah
Olivia
Paisley
Quinn
Randy
Sophia
Tori
Unique
Vagina
Will
Xavier
Yndygo
Zoey

Well, not all towns are laid out and planned.

Hurricanes should be given rapper names.

Exactly the point. So massive damage, identified by human mistakes, will now create the serious damage.

Pennsylvania required retention basins. What well understood engineering was finally appreciated even by the naive. Does NC have that always required planning?

SC apparently got off easy. Only serious flooding may have already been on the Santee River. Nothing is exceeding flood stage.

NC will probably have most problems from west of Charlotte downriver to Cape Fear. All along the state's south side. NC got off easy. Worst rivers apparently are rising only to just above flood stage.

First Charlotte gets harmed by wacko extremist Trump supporters. Next year, the weather. In both cases, it could have been much worse.

Good thing the rivers only crested or there would be more than the 170 closed roads. Including 2 interstates.

Rivers only achieved (some have not gotten to) flood stage. These rivers are no where near what was feared. As noted earlier, we will now see where humans failed to do their job.

Rivers at or even just about flood stage should close no interstate. Defective engineering directly traceable to humans. Why are so many roads closed for rivers not even at flood stage?

Cape Fear river (downriver) - not yet at flood stage.
Cape Fear river (partly upriver) - ten feet above flood stage.
Cape Fear river (most upriver) - below flood stage.
Rockfish Creek (above Cape Fear river) - four feet below flood stage.
Flat Creek - only 5 feet above flood stage.
Pee Dee Creek - below flood stage.
Black River - only 5 feet above flood stage.
Little River - 1 foot above flood stage.
Lumber River (downriver) - not yet at flood stage.
Lumber River (upriver) - well below flood stage.
McAlpine Creek - at flood stage.
Little Hope Creek - below flood stage.
Long Creek - at flood stage.
Deep River - 2 feet above flood stage.
Rocky River - at flood stage.

Above are among the most flooded rivers in southern NC. All this is only minor flooding. Not the major disaster that was feared. And no where near flooding seen during Hurricane Matthew.

Anything at or below flood stage means no serious problems should exist. An America that is investing in itself rather than giving tax cuts to the rich should be fixing those 130 flooded roads and defectively built interstates.

NC and SC dodged a bullet.

Shoulda planned those rivers more carefully.

Tw sure can type. Idk about all those cresting river heights. I do know that all this shit is flooded around here. Fayetteville is flooded and Matthew didn't bother them much last time. People like to live next to the water, but for some unknown reason never think about a flood.

Where my parents lived on the Lockwood Folly river in Supply, NC the different floods never got in the house. This time its a foot deep I hear. Just as well I sold it a couple years ago.

Down on the coast are tidal rivers and the tide acts like a dam against the draining landscape. It will take awhile, but Carolinians are tough.

Gaston IL (on the Mississippi River) would flood. And people assumed that was normal. Two major flood one year apart finally brought sanity. They fixed the human created defect. Gaston move the entire town up the hill. No more flooding.

We would constantly build homes by grading properly. For example, homes on steep hillsides never had flooding. Steep hills in the back yard were graded to that water always flowed away and around from the house. I cannot say how many homes were so badly graded as to beg to be flooded. Building homes on a flood plain or in a reservoir below the dam height is just plain stupid.

A river only at flood stage should never flood any home or close any major highway.

All that water is now coming downstream. Those many rivers that were not so flooded are now above flood stage. Some are now double above flood stage. Some locations are now so high that some river gauges are flooded.

In the small region where the hurricane made landfall, flooding has and remains a problem in towns around the Wilimington suburbs. Water is receding in the northern suburbs. But the runoff from Central NC has not yet increasing in regions west and south of Wilmington. Data in that region is spotty since so many gauges have flooded and failed. But runoff has created floods that are double floodstage in regions between Fayetteville and Wilmington. The Cape Fear river is now collecting that run off.

Fllooding in this small region of NC has exceeded that of Hurricane Mathew in 2016.

I did an aerial photo reconnaissance mission of the Cape Fear river from Fayetteville out to the coast past Wilmington. I had to photograph a hundred miles of locks, dams, other obstacles and anything that might present a security threat to a Special Forces A-Team that was going to do a nighttime rubber raft exfiltration exercise. I flew in a UH-1H Huey helicopter, open doors, in the middle of summer, with humidity heavy enough to chew the air. If everything had been underwater back then, my day would have been a lot easier. The highlight of the trip was buzzing the coastal surf and waving back at the beachgoers.

Followup, the latest IPCC report agrees that cyclonic storms are decreasing; notes that the only reason we think they aren't is because we're watching closer; and mentions there is some supporting science for why they may decrease during warming.

That's right these are pissant storms, you whippersnappers should have seen storms we had back in the day. Every drop of rain fell three times before becoming part of a flood that washed away the school which was always uphill.

I think they might retire Michael as a name. I wonder how they decide the replacements? Clearly they will go with a masculine M name, but I wonder if choosing non/less gender-specific names could be the way forward for equality in society.... (Mason, Morgan).

Other possible approaches could be choosing...

>names that need to disappear so maybe if they are given to nasty hurricanes people will stop using them for their kids (Mustard, Moonbeam)
> names stereotypically viewed as non-threatening in the hope that hurricanes will live up to their gentler nature (Malcolm, Marvin)
> names stereotypically viewed as strong because irony dictates those storms will be weak (Mars, Maximus)
> interesting words instead of names to increase the nation's vocabulary (Malacoid, Mucid)

thoughts?

Will there ever be a hurricane named Sue? We all know that need not be gender specific.

Many we should start with Zelda and work backwards.

We could use body parts and move on to other species when we run out of ours. It would be educational and a good topic for small talk. A few examples from EENT:

Hurricane Fundus
Hurricane Pinna
Hurricane Nares
Hurricane Uvula