A catastrophe is developing in the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix as Category 5 Maria continues to intensify to a pressure of 916mb and sustained winds of about 170mph at 5pm EDT as Maria approaches the south side of St Croix.
NHC update 7pm eastern
Wind gusts are already getting dangerous on St Croix.
700 PM AST POSITION AND INTENSITY UPDATE...>>>» EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE MARIA STILL STRENGTHENING...Reports just received from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that the maximum sustained winds have increased to 175 mph (280 km/h). The estimated minimum pressure based on data from the aircraft is 909 mb (26.84). A wind gust to 63 mph (102 km/h) was recently reported in the eastern portion of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
7:00 PM AST Tue Sep 19
Location: 16.9°N 64.1°W
Moving: WNW at 10 mph
Min pressure: 909 mb
Max sustained: 175 mph
Maria now has a central pressure that is significantly lower than Irma’s and Maria continues to strengthen at 7pm EDT.
stcroixsource.com/...
Hurricane Maria’s eye wall is projected to pass over the southwest quadrant of St. Croix, meaning the island will experience the highest possible wind levels from the Category 5 hurricane and the southwest shore may see a massive storm surge that could devastate anything near the shore on that part of the island.
At his 11 a.m. Tuesday briefing before the storm, Gov. Kenneth Mapp said the National Weather Service said to expect a storm surge of six to nine feet. The storm surge is like a high tide, a dome of water lifted by the low pressure zone in the eye of the hurricane. Along with sea levels up to nine feet higher than normal, there will be waves as high as 25 feet on the southern shore of the island.
Unfortunately, the wave height forecast is on the low side. The Montserrat buoy, on the weak side of Marie measured 31 foot wave heights before it became unmoored. www.ndbc.noaa.gov/… Maria is still intensifying and its wave fetch is growing as it moves through the Caribbean. Wave heights greater than 35 feet are likely and perhaps some waves in the largest sets will be as high as 50 feet. There is no continental shelf to drain the power of incoming waves. Waves will be funneled by refraction into the man made channels of Lime Tree Bay, destroying the oil and passenger ports. The oil tank farm that is the active part of the closed Hovenska refinery is behind an engineered rock berm but it was probably not designed for a strong category 5 hurricane. Oil tanks could be breached by storm surf driven rocks and debris. Time will tell. The port will surely be destroyed.
St. Croix residents are hoping that a southward jog in Maria’s track will spare the island from Maria’s strongest winds. stcroixsource.com/...
Hurricane Maria has moved west of it’s projected path somewhat and is now projected to pass 10 to 20 miles south of St. Croix, Gov. Kenneth Mapp said in a 5:15 p.m. Tuesday statement from Government House on St. Croix.
That is an improvement over having the eye pass directly over part of St. Croix as projected earlier today.
Airport structures are all in harms way. If winds are 175mph they will destroy everything that isn’t designed for worst case conditions and everything that sticks up too high into the wind. There is hope that the winds won’t be so strong, but a slight deviation southwards in the eye won’t change the wave height forecast much. The waves will be enormous — over 35 feet high. I have carefully examined the topography near the airport and note that a stream flows near the east end of the runway near the harbor. There’s also a rocky point that will refract waves into the bay this stream flows into. Thus it is likely that the east end of the runway will be destroyed by surges of waves combined with flooding from upstream.
The Coast Guard offered to evacuate people but very few people got on board the last ship out. Most people living on St Croix have suffered through a crumbling economy for the past decade. The refinery went out of business when cheap fracked gas made mainland refineries more economic than the St. Croix refinery which burned oil to refine crude. People stayed on St Croix because they could not afford to leave. Now they are going to be cut off from the rest of the world until the U.S. Coast Guard and military can return to rescue them and replenish their supplies of food and water.
There is faint hope seen on radar that an eyewall replacement cycle has started and will lead to temporary weakening that will lessen Maria’s destruction. Radar is beginning to show concentric eyewalls.
The very tiny inner eye as seen by microwave satellite imaging may be collapsing.
The 5pm NHC discussion says winds are 165mph and pressure has dropped to 916mb.
Maria has continued to strengthen this afternoon, with surface andflight-level winds from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunteraircraft supporting an intensity of 145 kt, and the centralpressure inside the 5 n mi wide eye falling to 916 mb. Theaircraft data also indicates that an outer wind maximum is presentabout 20-30 n mi from the center, but this has not yet developedinto enough of an outer eyewall to stop the intensification in theinner eyewall.The initial motion remains 300/9. The forecast track philosophyremains the same, with the eye of Maria expected to move near theU. S. Virgin Islands tonight and across Puerto Rico on Wednesday,followed by a motion just north of the eastern Dominican RepublicWednesday night and Thursday. Subsequently, a break in thesubtropical ridge caused in part by Hurricane Jose should allowMaria to turn north-northwestward and northward by the end of theforecast period. Only minor changes have occurred in the trackguidance since the last advisory, and the new track has only minoradjustments from the previous track.Some additional strengthening is possible this evening before theouter eyewall becomes better defined or the cyclone reaches itsmaximum potential intensity. It now appears likely that Maria willbe at category 5 intensity when it moves over the U. S. VirginIslands and Puerto Rico, although there is a chance that the startof the eyewall replacement cycle might reduce the intensity a littlebit. The hurricane should weaken as it crosses Puerto Rico, andafter that proximity to Hispaniola and less favorable upper-levelwinds are likely to lead to continued slow weakening. The newintensity forecast remains at the upper edge of the intensityguidance.
The south and southwest shores of Puerto Rico face devastation tomorrow.
Maria now has a lower central pressure than Irma’s lowest pressure and its still intensifying rapidly. Via the comments, Maria has pressure of 913mb while Irma got as low as 914mb.
In three passes of the hurricane hunter plane the pressure has dropped from 920mb to 913mb.
Update 6am September 20
Maria has made landfall on the southeast corner of Puerto Rico as a strong category 4 hurricane after going through an eyewall replacement cycle. The automated Lime Tree Bay weather station on St Croix stopped reporting just before midnight and was likely destroyed by huge waves. The NE side of Maria’s eyewall had a direct hit on St. Croix just after midnight.