The Weather Channel says the hurricane hunter recon aircraft confirm what the radar is saying, that the south and southwest side of the eyewall is “a bit ragged.”
Frankly, I don’t think this is really a 155 mph hurricane anymore. I could be wrong — and remember, I’m not a metereologist, just an amateur hurricane buff — but I really think this thing is weaker than the NHC is saying. (Naturally, they don’t want people to let down their guard.) The last-minute weakening processes that we all hoped for are indeed happening. Dry air, shear, eyewall replacement… whatever it is, some factors have conspired to disrupt Katrina’s circulation. Hopefully that trend will continue — remember, the eyewall has several more hours before it reaches heavily populated areas, so if the weakening trend continues, that would be excellent news, in terms of the amount of wind damage that will occur. It will still be severe, but not the kind of catastrophic, Andrew-type, everything-gets-flattened damage that the NWS described earlier today. (By way of comparison, here’s what Andrew looked like on radar when it hit.)
However, the bigger concern here is the flooding of New Orleans, and from everything I’ve read, even a Category 3 hurricane would be enough to top the levees. Moreover, the weakening of the west side of the storm won’t help with that, because it’s the easterly winds ahead of the storm — on the east side — that will do most of the work in flooding Lake Pontchartrain. So unless the experts who studies these scenarios are wrong, I think New Orleans is still going to flood.
Again, this is just one amateur weather buff’s opinion, and I could be wrong.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 29th, 2005 at 4:06:42 am
the west side is important in the flood scenario as that is the side that would be pushing the lake water into the city. the east side pushes water into the lake, but the west in turn forces it in the direction of the city, without that wind being as strong hopefully the stress on the levees will be less extreme
August 29th, 2005 at 4:07:53 am
You can now see the whole eye on the close up NOLA radar (link on the left side of Brendan’s page). Doesn’t look quite that ragged on the close up.
August 29th, 2005 at 4:11:49 am
the west in turn forces it in the direction of the city, without that wind being as strong hopefully the stress on the levees will be less extreme
Yeah, but I don’t think the winds need to be 155 mph or whatever… I think 100 or 115 mph would be plenty, and I’m sure even the “ragged” west side has that… but maybe not, who knows?
August 29th, 2005 at 4:13:56 am
could be the difference between 10 feet and 20 which is potentially huge
August 29th, 2005 at 4:15:10 am
You’re clearly right on the weakening. You can read between the lines with the folks on the news. Nobody wants to go on record and risk being wrong, but you can tell from the presentation tone that this thing is not going to be the monster that was once feared.
That said, the flooding could still be a huge problem. Doomsday scenarios rarely play out, so I am holding out optimism that No’s levee system will hold. That just seems to be the way this stuff happens. I think there’s a tendency in predictive studies to build in a certain amount of alarmism–it’s human nature, and it creates an audience. As a result, things tend not to be as bad as predicted in these situations.
I’ll make a prediction: whatever dire prediction becomes the conventional wisdom on the amount of time for NO to get dry, the actual number will be be much lower. People adapt and innovate, and they will find a way to get NO back on line ahead of schedule. Don’t get me wrong: Things will be bad. They just won’t be as bad as everyone might now be fearing.