Starting to feel some of Hurricane Irma

After a tense few days of watching Irma and its forecast tracks, some of the effects of Irma are starting to reach us here. The eye of Irma is only just reaching the Florida Keys this morning, so this storm is pretty broad in reach. Pretty much all of Florida is going to be battered up by the hurricane.

Hurricane Irma forecast 201709101200Z
Hurricane Irma forecast 201709101200Z

The eastern coast managed to dodge what would have been a pretty catastrophic storm had it followed some of the earlier forecasts, but we’re not out of the woods yet. There are still warnings for strong winds, heavy rain, and flooding from rain and storm surge.

Jared’s Medium post has a good summary of what Charleston can expect from Irma.

Charleston is already beginning to feel the effects on the periphery of this extremely large hurricane, as a pressure gradient has developed between a strong high pressure wedge centered over the Great Lakes and the very deep low pressure associated with Hurricane Irma. The interaction between the two pressure centers is driving gusty northeast winds across the area, similar to the effect one would feel standing between two large buildings.

The EarthWindMap website offers a pretty nice visualization of winds at different altitudes and lets you step through the GFS model to see how things might change over the model duration.

For the next couple of days, forecast shows surface winds that will push a lot of water toward the SC coast, causing a fair bit of flooding especially when combined with the already anticipated higher than usual tides.

I’m expecting a lot of rain and pretty windy conditions, but we’re far enough inland so surge related flooding isn’t a big concern. Fortunately the land around our subdivision is still largely undeveloped so there’s plenty of ground around us to soak up the rain water. I expect that will be gone over the next couple of years though, so the flooding probability might change.

Just a few more things to move around so they don’t get blown away, and then we see what Irma brings us.

Prepping for Irma

All the weather talk the last few days has been about Hurricane Irma, which is a Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds as of the 2017-09-05 2100Z update.

Irma becomes only the fifth Atlantic basin hurricane with a peak wind speed of 160 kt or
higher.  The others are Allen (1980), the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Gilbert (1988), and Wilma (2005).

Still a little early to know what kind of weather to expect from Irma in South Carolina, but it looks like Florida will have a good chance of taking a big hit.

Hurricane Irma forecast 201709042100Z
Hurricane Irma forecast 201709042100Z

The intensity forecast shows some weakening over the next few days as Irma plows through the islands. Irma is still going to pack a pretty big punch when it reaches Cuba and Florida though.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT  05/2100Z 17.1N  59.8W  160 KT 185 MPH
 12H  06/0600Z 17.6N  61.8W  155 KT 180 MPH
 24H  06/1800Z 18.5N  64.6W  150 KT 175 MPH
 36H  07/0600Z 19.5N  67.3W  145 KT 165 MPH
 48H  07/1800Z 20.4N  70.1W  140 KT 160 MPH
 72H  08/1800Z 21.6N  75.3W  135 KT 155 MPH
 96H  09/1800Z 22.7N  79.3W  125 KT 145 MPH
120H  10/1800Z 24.4N  81.5W  120 KT 140 MPH

It will be another two or three days before the forecast track becomes reliable enough to see what will happen here. In the meantime, we’re preparing things to either hunker down or leave depending on what happens with the forecast.

An unusually cool morning

18°C in the morning wouldn’t be unusual around here in the fall, but on a July morning, it’s very unusual. 28°C is a more typical temperature for a July morning.

I’ll take it.

The dogs were certainly enjoying the “cooler” weather this morning.

A break in the rain

According to the latest radar images, the river of rain has moved a little to the north, so now the house is just a the left edge of it instead of smack dab in the middle.

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It’s been a record setting rain with 29.2 cm (11.5 in) measured at the airport and 23.5 cm (9.25 in) measured downtown yesterday. Three days into October and apparently it’s already the wettest October on record.


Over by Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant, they recorded over 60 cm of rain since Thursday.


Had another round of torrential rain overnight, but now that the rain has stopped here, a lot of the water is starting to drain from the yard. The water in the ditch is back to a still high but more reasonable level and over in the corner of the side yard along the ditch the water has gone down quite a bit since last night.

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Now that it’s daylight, you can see the line of debris that gives an indication of how far away from the ditch the water got last night.

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With the water level in the ditch going back down, the swale is back to draining (slowly) into the ditch rather than the other way around.

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Glad for the break in the rain, but with the rest of the state continuing to get hammered there will still be lots of flooding going on.

Wetter and soggier

After a bit of a break in the rain for a few hours, the water in the back and side yards started to recede just a little bit, but it didn’t last long. A couple hours of torrential downpour and wind filled up the ditch and yard again to the point where the ditch is overflowing. Of course, being dark it’s hard to get any good pictures of it, but I managed to get a few decent ones during a break in the rain.

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The water filling up the swale got a lot wider

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Along the side yard near the front of the house, water’s getting pretty close to the house, and up against the neighbour’s house.

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More rain on the way and another high tide coming up in a few hours. Seeing a few reports of buildings downtown getting inundated with water now.

So far the house is staying high and dry, aside from a little bit of wind driven rain getting in underneath the garage door seals. A look in the attic space above the ceilings didn’t show any leakage or anything, which is good.

Hopefully the rest of the rain we get tonight isn’t quite as torrential as what went through a couple hours ago, and some of this water has a chance to drain away some.