rethinking hurricane evacuations...

something to think about....we always leave early anyway...

my plans will stay the same....

It would help so much to have a good source for oceanic heat maps and wind shear maps. I see them occaisionally in Jeff Masters' blogs, but haven't taken the time to dig out the the source.

Rapid intensification is almost always the result of the storm traversing an area of high heat and low wind shear. That's what happened with Felix. If we knew such conditions were in the path of a storm headed our way, it would help.

I'm fairly convinced that Katrina and Wilma went over the Loop Current in the Gulf. It's a deep stream of warm water that eventually flows through the Florida Strait to run up the east coast. Any hurricane that traverses it is virtually guaranteed to intensify.

It would help so much to have a good source for oceanic heat maps and wind shear maps. I see them occaisionally in Jeff Masters' blogs, but haven't taken the time to dig out the the source.

Rapid intensification is almost always the result of the storm traversing an area of high heat and low wind shear. That's what happened with Felix. If we knew such conditions were in the path of a storm headed our way, it would help.

I'm fairly convinced that Katrina and Wilma went over the Loop Current in the Gulf. It's a deep stream of warm water that eventually flows through the Florida Strait to run up the east coast. Any hurricane that traverses it is virtually guaranteed to intensify.

This may be part of what you wanted? I don't know where the wind shear might be.

Sea surface temp page
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsst.shtml

weatherunderground.com always has a heat map, but you cannot really zoom in for particulars.

From Dr Masters' Blog:
"Felix now holds the record for shortest time for an Atlantic storm to intensify to Category 5 strength. Felix required just 51 hours to reach Category 5 strength after it started as a tropical depression. That is a truly remarkable intensification rate, considering most tropical cyclones take 3-5 days to organize into a Category 1 hurricane."

I'm sure that this bit of knowledge may cause some people to rethink their evacuation strategies about staying around if the a storm is predicted to remain low intensity. What do you think? Will your plans change after reading this?

I was just thinking about how lucky we are . We have so many ways to help us today. Can you imagine what it was like before TV or computers? Yep ... It is good to be alive!