Category: Weather

Weather related posts

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Wet and soggy weekend

Thanks to a confluence of weather events, a lot of moisture from Hurricane Joaquin is getting funneled right through the state.

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We’ve been getting a good bit of rain the past few days, and the forecast was calling for an additional 20-40 cm of rain for the weekend. After raining pretty much all of yesterday evening and all night, I ventured out to find the ditch beside the house running pretty high and fast, with the swale coming off the ditch like a tributary.

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Normally the swale drains into the ditch, but I think today, the swale was draining the ditch.

The corner of the side yard was looking like this

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Looks like it will be like this for most of the day. Apparently downtown flooding was bad enough that the Charleston Police Department closed off the peninsula a few hours ago.


It’s not just the peninsula that’s flooding either. There are a lot of other areas in West Ashley, Mt. Pleasant, Isle of Palms, North Charleston where the water is getting pretty high too.

A day like today makes me glad we got the eavestroughing put up around the house.