Joaquin is battering Bermuda but will move quickly out to sea and lose its tropical characteristics as it becomes embedded in the westerlies. Meanwhile a catastrophic flood event is occurring in South Carolina, partially because of Joaquin, while the search continues for the El Faro.
BERMUDA
Conditions on Bermuda can be monitored here. It appears the worst of the currently Category 2 hurricane, which nearly reached Category 5 yesterday as it accelerated to the northeast, may miss the island by inches.
THE BAHAMAS
Damage in the Bahamas is extensive.
While yesterday it appeared there was a significant loss of life, it now appears this is not the case. Even the people stranded on Samana Cay were rescued.
The Bahamas do have a bit of a secret--they stick up higher from the ocean than people might think. Shelters are located on the high points of islands, and buildings in the Bahamas are solidly constructed.
But to get a sense of Joaquin's power, this video from San Salvador should give you an idea. San Salvador was pounded by sustained and intense hurricane force winds for almost two days.
Debris has been spotted in the area where the El Faro vanished. I can only imagine that when the ship left Jacksonville on Tuesday, its captain was confident Joaquin would turn quickly out to sea. The hurricane's southwest motion was somewhat unexpected, as was its intensity. The search continues.
NEXT STOP?
Not the United States, thankfully. It's not coming here, period, no matter how many wishcasters seem to keep trying to make this happen.
I find the Earth Wind Map is a good way to show why. This is the 500mb level--basically the jet stream. See all those barbs headed east? Joaquin will become part of those barbs within the next day.
Joaquin will transition into a powerful extratropical storm over the next few days and will give the British Isles a significant blow toward the end of the week.
WHY WERE THE MODELS WRONG?
All models are wrong. But they are often useful. And as an aside, it'd be so cool if modelcasters would get this through their heads.
But this forecast was always going to be complicated, as I said in the first diary I wrote. Different pieces had to come together at exactly the right time. Unluckily for the Bahamas, the pieces came together to drive the hurricane into the Central Bahamas, where it took its sweet time in moving away. Luckily for the United States, the pieces (a cut-off upper low over the southeast, a digging trough which contributed to the flood and landslide in Guatemala, and a group of systems over the Atlantic) came together to shunt the hurricane out to sea.
Looking back, I think the US missed a landfalling hurricane by inches.
THE SOUTH CAROLINA FLOOD AND THE MID-ATLANTIC COASTAL FLOODING
The rains in South Carolina are impressive and destructive. This is a historic and major flooding event, much of it deep inland away from the coast.
This rain event was better forecast than Joaquin. It was always going to rain, even if the hurricane had never formed. A coastal system had been forecast to spin up along the coast for several days prior to Joaquin's formation, and this persisted all during the week. Meanwhile, a linkage developed between the hurricane and the low pressure system over the southeast. You can read an in depth description of the science behind this here and here and here.
Here's a sample (courtesy of The Vane) of some of the rainfall that's fallen over South Carolina.
Here are some rainfall totals collected by NWS offices in Charleston and Columbia on Sunday morning:
6 miles northeast of Mount Pleasant, S.C.: 24.23”
3 miles south-southwest of Shadowmoss, S.C.: 22.47”
3 miles north-northeast of Huger, S.C.: 21.04”
Gills Creek, S.C.: 18.39”
3 miles northwest of Summerville, S.C.: 17.23”
Charleston Airport: 16.61”
NWS Charleston: 16.49”
Shaw Air Force Base: 14.34”
Columbia Metro Airport: 9.50”
3 miles northeast of Walterboro, S.C.: 7.87”
Please keep the people of South Carolina in your thoughts.
Further north a northeasterly fetch of winds has battered the mid-Atlantic coast. This means several tide-cycles worth of water has not been able to drain, causing damaging coastal flooding in many locations. Conditions should begin to improve tomorrow.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON AND WHEN WILL IT BE OVER?
There typically is a secondary peak in hurricane activity around October 10th, and I expect maybe 3 more storms to form between now and the end of the season on November 30th. Around this time of year is when focus shifts to the western Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
UPDATES: a 74 mile stretch of I-95 in South Carolina is closed.
The Forest Lake Dam near Florence, SC, may breach. This appears to be on the south side of the city of Florence.
The Flash Flood Warning remains in effect until 6:30 PM EDT Sunday for Horry, Marion and Florence counties. At 3:54 PM EDT, emergency management reported failure of the Oakdale Lake Dam on the west side of the city of Florence. This will possibly impact Interstate 95 between the Interstate 20 interchange and the Route 76 exit as well as portions of Route 76. Water from Oakdale Lake has the potential to overtop The Forest Lake Dam which is on the southwest side of the city of Florence.
This is a potentially life threatening situation and residents near the Oakdale and Forest Lake dams are urged to closely monitor the situation and heed instructions from local emergency management. Additional moderate to heavy rain off the northern South Carolina coast will move onshore during the next few hours with potential for an additional 3 to 6 inches of rainfall within the warned area.
Recommended actions
Do not enter or cross flowing water or water of unknown depth. Turn around, dont drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles.
Please Report flooding to the National Weather Service in Wilmington at 800 - 697 - 3901, when you can do so safely.
UPDATE 2: There are pictures floating around Twitter of crocodiles in the flood. While some of these are clearly from an event in Australia (google image search is awesome), alligators are native to parts of the Carolinas and are likely going to be displaced too.
Stay out of the floodwaters. They're full of sewage and fire ants and other unpleasant things.
UPDATE 3: It certainly is true more extreme weather is coming in the future.
One area under active study amongst many of the state DOTs is this idea of resiliency and adaptation. If a bridge or culvert floods and needs to be replaced, it's often replaced with the exact same bridge or culvert, as required by regulations. Building something that'd allow more water to pass is not going to get reimbursed from the Federal government because then everything downstream is impacted. Your project then becomes a much bigger project that then has to go through the extensive and time-consuming, and expensive NEPA process. This is a regulatory barrier that's worth visiting and perhaps eliminating.
I don't know if South Carolina is doing anything but I do know that in states where the Governor's Office has banned the use of the words "climate change" the agencies get around that by saying "extreme weather" and then just continue on from there, making "extreme weather" and climate change the exact same thing. This is something I learned at a kickoff meeting for a study I'm actually going to be a part of for the next year.
UPDATE 4:
Turn Around, Don't Drown is so important.
UPDATE 5:
I went and found a good image (and drew on it) as to why Joaquin is not going to make a left hook into the US.
via the Climate Re-analyzer from the University of Maine.
The orange dot is Joaquin's current location. It is within,
at the 250 millibar level, a steering flow that is steadily taking it to the northeast. In a day or two it will be fully embedded in the westerlies.
If the storm were farther to the west of Bermuda we'd possibly be in some trouble. But it's not.
We're still in serious trouble from the low pressure system and linkage that's dousing the Carolinas with severe rains. We don't need a hurricane on top of it.
Elsewhere in the tropics, I'm keeping an eye on Oho, south and east of Hawaii. This could be another tricky forecast although it looks like it'll move away from the islands and become embedded in storms that may signal the opening of the El Nino rains forecasted for the US West Coast.