A Cat Brian Won't Like

[airboatr]

That Cat 3 Hurricane churning your way.. hopefully you and Chris are making whatever preparations are warranted.

... Some areas are forecast to get a meter of rainfall..

They're already talking about increasing gas prices.. fill-up asap

[FlyTexas]

Definitely keeping an eye on Harvey. We're not expecting much rain here due to a high pressure dome sitting over north Texas. The high pressure dome is very bad news for the folks living on the coast because the dome will not allow the hurricane to travel northward and blow itself out over a large area. The hurricane will probably just sit over south Texas and dump tons of rain.

Brian

[FlyTexas]

Harvey is now Cat 4. 130 mph winds.

Brian

[FlyTexas]

Took the Autocrat up for a look at the weather. Great gravy! Horrible visibility and gusts of 65 kts. Finally landed her, opened the door (to the sound of the wind blowing like crazy), and heard a voice telling me to "Shut the bl**dy door!" And no I have not had a drop of Merlot tonight.



Brian

[airboatr]

Not a drop, just the whole bottle!?

... It cranked up to a cat 4..
Been there done that.. not fun .. and it's going to stall over the top of them
Gas jumped from 2.09 yesterday to 2.19 at the station I buy my gas.. I also maintain the mechanicals of the building.

No discount though.

Gas? I meant petrol..

[Airspeed]

Mrs Airspeed showed me a clip from Northern Texas on line today, looked ready to rip trees out of the ground, when a person walked calmly into view, opened a door and stepped inside. Couldn't even see their clothes flap in the wind...

Brian, sounds like that curse is triggered when air passing over the aircraft exceeds a certain speed, obviously in expectation that the door has been opened in flight. Sim or not, you were brave to go up in those conditions!

[FlyTexas]

Yes Mike, hurricane Harvey is a strange dude. They were expecting a 17 foot storm surge but have only seen a four foot storm surge. They also thought the hurricane was going to be a wind event (130 mph winds) but now they're saying that the hurricane is more of a rain event. Harvey has definitely surprised a few people. And now there's a high pressure area to the east of the hurricane (there's also one to the west) so Harvey is really boxed in and won't be able to move much. On a lighter note I did see a video today showing a Port-o-Potty tumbling end over end as it blew across a pasture. Hope nobody was in it.

Brian

[nigelb]

Not a drop, just the whole bottle!?

... It cranked up to a cat 4..
Been there done that.. not fun .. and it's going to stall over the top of them
Gas jumped from 2.09 yesterday to 2.19 at the station I buy my gas.. I also maintain the mechanicals of the building.

No discount though.

Gas? I meant petrol..

I have been through a very near miss when I lived in Virginia Beach and another here in Herndon years ago that wiped out power to much of the state for days. Not a pleasant experience Can't say I would ever want to live in a hurricane prone area. Oh, Petrol jumped 10 cents a gallon here also overnight and like, you, we are miles from Texas.

Mogel²

[Chris Trott]

Gas prices are jumping because most of the major refineries along the Gulf Coast shutdown on Thursday in anticipation of landfall.

BTW, the only people expecting this to be a wind or surge event were the media "Weathermen", not anyone at the National Hurricane Center or local NWS offices. The models were pretty clear on the fact that water (rain/flooding) was going to be the problem with this storm. The only thing they couldn't resolve with any certainty was how long it was going to stall over South Central Texas before starting to move northeast because it involved continental air masses that the hurricane models have problems resolving reliably.

This event is going to be many factors worse than Ike on the scale of water inundation and destruction. The flooding in the Houston Metro area is already above any recorded level and it's going to only get worse as they're now expecting another 12-15 inches in the next 24 hours before the storm begins to move northeast. As of right now, it's following the "worst case" tracks with the center of the system not looking to reach Houston until Tuesday night or Wednesday. Even worse, it appears the storm may still go back offshore and re-strengthen into a CAT I or CAT II Hurricane before making a second landfall somewhere along the Bolivar Peninsula. The only saving grace appears to be that because it will go ashore there, there won't be the same back bay flooding that caused all the damage in Ike.

This storm is by no means over. It's going to be Thursday before it weakens to a Depression around Longview, TX at this point, if not longer. They're now saying that there could be 12+ inches of rain as far north as Little Rock now.

[Paul K]

I've been looking at the reports on the web, and the rainfall is extraordinary - I don't think even Wales gets that amount of water. Good luck to all our CBFS Texans.