There is a lot to talk about this morning so let’s get right to it.
HERMINE
Hermine has remerged into the Atlantic and is busy transitioning into a hybrid system off of Cape Hatteras. This is happening folks. You probably heard some “doomsday forecasts”; some comparisons to Sandy. Well, it’s happening. The time for model chasing is over—now we watch observations.
11AM Advisory:
BULLETIN
POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE HERMINE ADVISORY NUMBER 25
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL092016
1100 AM EDT SAT SEP 03 2016
...HERMINE STRENGTHENS AS IT MOVES INTO THE ATLANTIC...
...DANGEROUS STORM SURGE EXPECTED ALONG THE COAST FROM VIRGINIA
TO NEW JERSEY...
SUMMARY OF 1100 AM EDT...1500 UTC...INFORMATION
-----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...36.1N 75.2W
ABOUT 35 MI...55 KM ESE OF DUCK NORTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 80 MI...135 KM SE OF NORFOLK VIRGINIA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...65 MPH...100 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...ENE OR 60 DEGREES AT 15 MPH...24 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...993 MB...29.33 INCHES
WATCHES AND WARNINGS
--------------------
CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY:
The Tropical Storm Warning has been extended northward and eastward
from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to west of Watch Hill, Rhode Island,
including Long Island, Long Island Sound, and New York City.
A Tropical Storm Watch has been issued from Watch Hill, Rhode
Island, to Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts, including Block Island,
Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod.
SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:
A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for...
* Ocracoke Inlet to west of Watch Hill
* Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds
* Chesapeake Bay from Drum Point southward
* Tidal Potomac from Cobb Island eastward
* Delaware Bay
A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for...
* Watch Hill to Sagamore Beach
* Block Island
* Martha's Vineyard
* Nantucket
A Tropical Storm Warning means that tropical storm conditions are
expected somewhere within the warning area within 36 hours.
A Tropical Storm Watch means that tropical storm conditions are
possible within the watch area, in this case within 36 to 48 hours.
For storm information specific to your area, including possible
inland watches and warnings, please monitor products issued by your
local National Weather Service forecast office.
DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
------------------------------
Satellite imagery indicates that Hermine has lost tropical
characteristics, and is now a post-tropical cyclone. At 1100 AM EDT
(1500 UTC), the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine was located
just offshore of the North Carolina Outer Banks near latitude 36.1
North, longitude 75.2 West. Hermine is moving toward the east-
northeast near 15 mph (24 km/h). A turn toward the northeast and a
decrease in forward speed are expected by tonight, followed by a
slow northward motion through early Monday. On the forecast track,
the center of Hermine will move away from the North Carolina coast
and meander offshore of the Delmarva Peninsula Sunday night and
early Monday.
Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph (100 km/h) with higher
gusts. Some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours,
and Hermine is expected to be near hurricane intensity on Sunday.
Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205 miles (335 km)
from the center. A National Ocean Service station at the Duck Pier
in North Carolina recently reported a sustained wind of 58 mph (94
km/h) and a wind gust of 73 mph (117 km/h). Elizabeth City, North
Carolina, recently reported a sustained wind of 44 mph (70 km/h) and
a wind gust of 55 mph (89 km/h).
If this were a normal tropical system, it’d be well on its way to Iceland by tonight. Nope. Not this time. Because of the formation of a Rex Block (the same high pressure system that’s vexed New England, the Canadian Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario with drought this summer), Hermine is going to get stuck. It is going to get stuck over some warm waters so tonight and tomorrow it may very well transition back into being a hurricane. It will very likely make some loops and because we’re not quite sure where those loops may happen and how wide they will be, there’s enough of a chance one of those loops will bring it on shore somewhere between Ocean City MD and the eastern tip of Long Island as an intense ocean storm, perhaps even a hurricane. It will be Wednesday afternoon when Hermine finally gets out.
The main threat from this is storm surge, surges lasting for days.
When now retired NWS meteorologist Gary Szatkowski drops the qualifiers, you know this is serious.
If you’re on holiday on the Jersey Shore, the Delmarva coasts, the beaches of Long Island or coastal Rhode Island and Massachusetts, go home. If you live there permanently, prepare or evacuate if you’re on the islands. Like right now. Coastal flooding won’t just be one tide cycle, it will be many.
The water could reach the following heights above ground if the
peak surge occurs at the time of high tide...
North Carolina coast...1 to 3 feet
Hampton Roads area...3 to 5 feet
Chincoteague, VA to Sandy Hook, NJ...3 to 5 feet
Sandy Hook, NJ to Bridgeport, CT...2 to 4 feet
Am I scaring anyone reading this from the Shore? Am I ruining your Labor Day weekend holiday? Good. Go home. Get away from the beach. Do it now. If you’re going to stay? Write your social security number on your arm in permanent marker in case the worst happen.
The only thing that seems to be good news is storm surge in and around New York City will not reach Sandy levels. The subways will not flood. But they may come close---the last worst-case tidal flooding forecast I saw for The Battery at the tip of Manhattan was 8.6 feet (the subways flood at 10.5 feet)
The silence of officials in many of these Shore points from Virginia on up into New England is fucking galling and I’m not the only one thinking so. (autoplay at link, sorry).
I am actually hoping this forecast busts, Hermine peeters herself out tonight, and that will be that. But it won’t. Since officials seems to be quiet or waiting until the last moment, people are going to have to take action on their own.
Conditions will deteriorate steadily but Sunday-Monday will be the worst days. For some places? Much worse than Sandy.
Go home.
Get out.
Cancel your trip.
Do it now.
LESTER
Lester, thankfully, won’t make headlines. It will move just north of the Hawaiian Islands, instead of through them on its course west-northwest. Still, stay out of the water unless you know what you’re doing. I imagine the surfing conditions are amazing.
OKLAHOMA EARTHQUAKE
I was wondering why my phone would not stop buzzing this morning---it woke me out of a sound sleep. An earthquake, centered near Pawnee, is why. It probably woke lots of other people out of a sound sleep too, and it was damaging to the town of Pawnee. I am aware of at least one injury.
I know it was felt as far north as Des Moines and as far south as Houston Intercontinental Airport, where the air traffic controllers reported their tower shaking. I know it woke a lot of people up in Dallas---they all tweeted me about it! The earthquake had a magnitude of Mw5.6, about the same size as the last big earthquake in Oklahoma in 2011, an earthquake sequence we now know was induced and triggered by wastewater injection due to oil extraction.
The quake is smack-dab in the heart of a region stressed because of wastewater injection due to oil and gas extraction. That same region is riddled with faults, all likely stressed due to wastewater injection. The wastewater is unusable. It’s too salty, slightly radioactive ancient seawater from millions of years ago. It comes up in this region with the oil, and they separate the water from the oil. The injection of wastewater doesn’t lubricate faults. It raises the level of stress in the Earth’s crust, so if you inject wastewater into an area already seriously stressed and close to failure, as it seems Oklahoma was, you’re going to get an earthquake. Research indicates earthquakes as far back as 1952 were possibly the result of oil and gas—part of the reason seems to be that in the 1950s, the state would no longer allow the oil and gas industry to place the salty brine in retention ponds. The industry instead put it down deep wells into formations. You can read two papers from Doctors Sue Hough and Morgan Page of the USGS about that here and here (and I recommend that you do).
I can’t say I’m not surprised. Despite the collapse of the oil and gas market earlier this year, which then led to the severe contraction of Oklahoma’s economy, and despite the controls the state levied, these kind of quakes are going to happen for quite some time. This was a shallow quake. I wouldn’t be surprised if within 30 kilometers of its epicenter, there are at least one high-volume water injection wells—the high volume wells absolutely have been tied to quakes across Oklahoma and elsewhere. That would make this an induced earthquake. If there aren’t, then this earthquake was triggered by other earthquakes that were induced through the actions of humans.