Hurricane Ike is looking nastier by the minute. I've been monitoring Wunderground, NHC, and KHOU off and on today, and things are starting to heat up.
For starters, Dr. Jeff Masters on Wunderground had this to say:
Ike will probably inundate a 250-mile stretch of Texas coast from Port O'Connor to the Louisiana border with a 10-15 foot storm surge. This will occur even if Ike is a Category 1 storm at landfall. If Ike is a Category 3+ hurricane at landfall, surges of 20+ feet are possible. The latest experimental storm surge forecast From NOAA's SLOSH model...shows a 10% chance that Ike's storm surge will exceed 18-21 feet at Galveston. The Galveston sea wall is 17 feet high, so it may get overtopped. At noon today, a mandatory evacuation of the entire island was ordered in case this worst-case scenario is realized. The official NHC forecast is calling for maximum storm surge heights of 20 feet.
Now I'm NOT millwx by any stretch...I'm just an amateur. I'm looking at this from a human impact. I don't know the first thing about meteorology. But when NWS includes something like this --
Life threatening inundation likely!
All neighborhoods... and possibly entire coastal communities...will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide. Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one or two story homes will face certain death. Many residences of average construction directly on the coast will be destroyed. Widespread and devastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere. Vehicles left behind will likely be swept away. Numerous roads will be swamped... some may be washed away by the water. Entire flood prone coastal communities will be cutoff. Water levels may exceed 9 feet for more than a mile inland. Coastal residents in
multi-story facilities risk being cutoff. Conditions will be worsened by battering waves. Such waves will exacerbate property damage... with massive destruction of homes... including those of block construction. Damage from beach erosion could take years to repair.
Auntie gets worried. This sounds pretty bad, and I worry about my Texas Kossack friends and family.
I don't know who triggers the Mothership diary and live thread, but methinks it's time. Landfall is supposed to be tomorrow night....