Rita and Corpus Christi

[Manu20]

Hurricane Rita Discussion Number 25


Statement as of 5:00 PM EDT on September 23, 2005



the weakening trend appears to have leveled off. It appears that the
eyewall replacement cycles have been the dominant factor...as
usual...in controlling the intensity fluctuations of Rita. Flight
level wind data from the reconnaissance aircraft indicate that
maximum winds are about 110 knots. Objective T-numbers have
increased a little suggesting stronger winds but I rather wait for
these numbers to persist. Only a slight weakening is forecast
before landfall due to shear and cooler ocean. This is not a very
significant change and in fact...Rita is still forecast to make
landfall as a category three hurricane.

The hurricane has been moving toward the northwest or 320 degrees at
about 10 knots during the past few hours. No significant change in
the steering pattern is expected before landfall. On this
track...the core of Rita should reach the Upper Texas/southwest
Louisiana coast Saturday morning. Thereafter...the steering
currents are foreast to collapse and a weakened Rita could
meander for a few days over northeast Texas/southwest Arkansas
producing torrential rains.

Forecaster Avila

[MannyIsGod]

So this NAM model is basically saying that it's going to hit the south tip of Galveston Island and head due West after landfall?

That doesn't seem right.

The NAM doesn't focus on the storm. The NAM is a large scale computer model that models the entire North American Atmosphere and what is going on at all levels. It forcasts the pressures/windflow/moisture and basically every concievable weather variable based on current observations and trends.

Basically, they NWS puts every ounce of data they have into this computer simulation in order to predict the weather.

The GFS does the same thing on a global scale, and there are other models that do the same.

The NAM is predicting the pressure north of east of Rita to force her to stall. This is probably going to happen. Most of the models forcast the situation to allow for the storm to stall.

Then, the NAM has high pressure building back to her north and east, which would force her to the south and west.

It is a possible scenario, but impossible to tell for certain if it will play out.

When the NWS makes forcasts they take all of the models into acount. When there is a consensus, things become cut and dry and it becomes very easy to forcast what will happen with a high confidence.

But in situations like this where every variable can play a big diference, they models often come up with different solutions and the NWS must come up with a forcast based on the trends, experience, and which models have been verifying. A model verifies when what it predicts actually happens.

They also look for run to run consistency as opposed to a model flip floping every run.

The NAM solution is plausible if the high pressure builds in to the north. We'll see what happens, but we can't totally discount that possibility by any means.

[MannyIsGod]

Objective T-numbers have
increased a little suggesting stronger winds but I rather wait for
these numbers to persist.

That is probably the most important part of that discussion. The NWS is seeing what we are seeing through the satellite images, and using the Dvorak method they think the winds have increased again. They aer waiting for conformation from a recon plane before officialy saying it though.

[Vashner]

I predict that at midnight tonight it will be a weak cat 4...

[travis2]

Travis, the NAM brings her right over San Antonio in 3 days.

One chunk, yes...the other one ends up around Lubbock...

[travis2]

of course, I was concentrating on the 500mb plots...that's your fault, Manny...

The surface plots show that second chunk doesn't do a whole lot...

[Horry For 3!]

Will Karnes City get any rain? Right now we have winds advisory and it is kinda windy outside right now...

[MannyIsGod]

I was concentrating on the 500mb level too. I figured the northern most piece of energy wouldn't have moisture to work with.

[travis2]

Oh, shut up...

[Manu20]

The models are in complete agreement on the track of the storm for next 18 hours. By 24-36 hours, the models begin to
go 'haywire'- as the steering currents become extremely weak. The storm will likely track up to near Shreveport by Saturday
night before going quasi-stationary. From Sunday on through Tues -- no one has a clue where the storm center - which will have
weakened considerably, will be going. The only thing being publicly mentioned is the storm will slow down and bring 2 days
of torrential rainfall to the region. The GFS continues to show the core circulation turning around and heading back to the
coast late Monday and hints at re-intensification. This is highly speculative of course, but you will not hear any of this
discussed on TV until Sunday at the soonest, assuming it is still being forecast at all. But if you took the landfall out of the
equation -- you would have a lot of attention being paid to this. Normally, once storms recurve to the north -- that means they
have begun to go around the sub-tropical high, and are almost always picked up by the westerlies - and taken out of the area.
But, just as was the case with Ophelia, even though the storm began moving northeast away from the Florida coast, it ended up
going stationary off the Carolinas for 3 days as the ridge built back in and blocked it's movement. It had to 'wait' for the next
short wave TROF in the westerlies, to finally pick it up and carry out to sea. The below series of GFS model forecasts will
show you it's track solution for the next 5 days. This is not meant to be a 'forecast'' per se -- but it is provided in my discussions because that's what I do -- and not what the Weather Channel or spokesman for the NHC do. They can't -- I can.

[Vashner]

[CosmicCowboy]

Manny...you and Travis might as well quit wasting your time on trying to predict this thing...It will go wherever the Japanese Mafia wants it to go...

http://weatherwars.info/

So in early 1990, the weather engineering operations over North America were assumed from the FSB/KGB by the Yakuza/Aum Shinrikyo teams, and operations continued with the Yakuza's leased giant scalar interferometers. The weather engineering against the United States continues today under the rogue Japanese teams on site in Russia, with direct FSB/KGB supervision.

In 2004 we have entered the 2-year "final preparation phase". These operations have been intensified and will continue to be intense, wreaking great economic damage. Hurricanes Charlie, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, etc. have been no exception to the Yakuza weather engineering, which included directly influencing and controlling each hurricane's power and behavior, as well as directing its course and speed so as to choose its targeting path. Indeed, Ivan did a 180 degree turn, and Jeanne did a 360 degree loop before reaching Florida, demonstrating the degree of control available.

[MannyIsGod]

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I'll be damned.

The GFS is coming out right now. I wonder what the Japanese mafia has planned. x a million.

[MannyIsGod]

The GFS still has a weaker ridge than the NAM. But its not as bullish anymore. It is trending towards the NAM's line of thinking. The true solution probably lies somewhere in the middle.

[CosmicCowboy]

it's just a Yakuza shift change. They will crank it back up soon...that night crew will start slammin that bottle of sake and have Rita doing cartwheels across the gulf and will probably drive her up the Houston Ship Channel to the all you can eat buffet at the San Jacinto Inn...

[MannyIsGod]

[MannyIsGod]

Well, the GFS brings her back to the SW as well, but it practicaly disapates everything by the time it does that.

So, both models now bring her back around, but just in different time frames. We'll see the next couple of runs I guess.

[rl64tx]

Well, Steve Brown doesn't seem to think she's gonna slide back this way.....So I'm gonna go start filling sand bags!!!

[MannyIsGod]

I wasn't paying attention, but I thought he said the rememants could come back also?

[rl64tx]

From what i gathered he has it stalling out and dissapating in N La or S Ark area

[CosmicCowboy]

naturally no one asked me but fron what I know and am seeing I would be doing a mandatory evacuation of everyone from Sam Rayburn Reservoir south. I checked the Corp of Engineers website and they are dumping water but in my opinion it's too little too late. I just don't see enough safety factor with the current water level...they are only 13 feet below the spillway and they are about to see rains like they have never had before. *sigh* sure hope I'm wrong. It's an earthen dam and if the water tops it it's gone...and SRR is the biggest lake in Texas...

[rl64tx]

Steve Brown now saying forecast changes........please tune in at 6pm....

[Sonia_TX]

I'm so bummed. My friend Courtney and her family decided to go back home because they weren't moving in the awful traffic...she lives in La Porte, Texas.

I'm back. Yesterday was a nightmare. A horrific nightmare..and the storm isnt even here yet. We left around 1pm yesterday. We had some last minute things to do we were supposed to leave around like 9 lol. But anyways we take 146N to 321. to 59 N to Lukfin. But we werent going to stay in lufkin we were going to drive further possibly to Oklahmoma. At first it was smooth sailing. Everything was fine. 10 min later, traffic of course. 2 o clock still on 146. 3, 4 5 ,6 7,8 gets dark. We all have to pee. We timed it. From 5:15 to 6:15 we went 0.4miles. By 10 we had a quarter of a tank of gas and were STILL not moving. People were stalled out. Sleeping at gas stations hoping to fill up in the morning. And i tell you somthing...we pulled in a gas station and i would NEVER sleep there. Tempers were flaring. It wasnt a good site. So we had quarter of a tank of gas. We just sat there looking at each other. We had JUST got to 321. Traffic was backed up to timbukto. So we did what everyone else did. We went home. We had no choice. I know these cops were doing their jobs...but i saw MORE THAN ONCE, a broke down vehicle with a family just standing there and a cop whizzing by them. Having to fend for themselves. So im at home. I think we will be safe here, yes we will have damage. Im sure of that.

[boutons]

La Porte must be very low elevation, ugh. She's gonna need a ton of luck.

I had friends from Beaumont leaving 2 PM Thurs, also through Lufkin, headed to McKinney. Took them 24 hours. many hours 10 MPH, or dead stopped. Lots of road rage and insane stuff.

==========================

September 23, 2005
Out of Gas, and Patience, on Texas Highways
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE WOODLANDS, Texas (AP) -- Some people were angry. Others were kind. All were stuck.

Out of gas and some of them out of patience, hundreds of folks woke up Friday morning, or never went to sleep, marooned on an interstate highway. They were trying to get out of traffic-choked Houston to flee approaching Hurricane Rita.

"I don't know what to do," said Nissanka Dharmawardene, who left Wednesdsay evening with his wife and two children from their home in Clear Lake, a flood-prone area in south Houston. Almost 36 hours later, they were on the grassy shoulder of Interstate 45, about 50 miles from home. Their gas-starved car was pointed northbound on the normally southbound lane, a result of officials who rerouted traffic Thursday in an unprecedented step to relieve horrific congestion.

Dozens of cars were like theirs, lining the shoulders of the highway or abandoned in parking lots in front of businesses.

Ironically, traffic by daylight was sparse, a far cry from the gridlock the night before as an estimated 2.5 million people fled inland from the Gulf of Mexico coast.

"Last night we were bewildered. Now we are hoping, waiting for trucks to come," said Dharmawardene, 52.

"I guess you sit and wait for someone to bring you gas or wait for the hurricane to come and kill us," said 32-year-old Darrell Dailey from southwest Houston. He was hoping to get to Dallas with his wife and three kids, a sister and her child.

Out of fuel, they spent the night at an Oak Ridge North school in Montgomery County with more than 200 other families.

"I'm scared," said his 12-year-old daughter, Tykendrea. "I think the hurricane will come, and we're outside."

Dailey slipped a credit card into a gas pump at a closed station. It approved the transaction but dispensed no fuel.

That's when Jim Carroll, 55, walked up.

"I've got some," he said, walking over to his own truck, disabled because of a fan belt problem, to retrieve a five-gallon can about half-filled with gasoline. Then using a cut plastic soft drink bottle as a funnel, he poured it in Dailey's car.

"Might as well let people use it," he said. "Let them get down the road."

"God bless you," Dailey told Carroll, who had hoped to get from his home in League City in Galveston County -- a likely flood area -- to Waco in Central Texas.

"We have been remarkably assisted by so many good citizens," Houston Mayor Bill White said of such random acts of kindness.

Dailey had spent the night in the gas station lot with about 50 people.

"It was hot, people were sleeping in cars, babies on the concrete were sleeping," Carroll said. "Not many people were prepared for this."

One S Oil Co. gas station with pumps that failed Thursday was able to get them running Friday morning, and constables armed with shotguns guarded the pumps and formed a single long line of cars to organize the chaos. Only premium-grade fuel was left. There were few objections. Karen Cheney said she had tried to soothe desperate motorists Thursday by giving away water.

"They attacked us," she said. "It was pretty hairy."

"We did lower the price to regular so we wouldn't gouge these people," Randy Pachar, the station owner, said Friday. "I'm just glad we were able to get this fixed. I wish we could do more."

Mary Coltzer, 68, was among several hundred who spent the night across the street in a parking lot, then was part of the long caravan of vehicles waiting Friday to get the unexpected fuel bonus. Overnight, people from a nearby neighborhood showed up to give them water.

"We'd have been in a world of hurt," she said, "Pretty damn miserable. It's not a lot of fun."

Rosa Castro, nearly out of fuel, walked to the front of the long line with a five-gallon plastic gas can, but officers said she'd have to be in her car, with her sister behind the wheel and their seven children in tow. They left Pasadena at 4 a.m., and stopped 17 hours later to spend the night in a Baptist church.

"It's been terrible, believe me," she said, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and house shoes. "We started with a full tank of gas and lots of water for the kids, but it was such a mess. I wondered why so many people in Katrina didn't move in time, and now I'm in the same situation. All I have is cash, clothes, and God."

[spurs=bling]

thank God my aunt is already in SA. i'm so glad she is out of there.