Unsurvivable Laura
The National Weather Service issued an unusual warning: Hurricane Laura is Unsurvivable.
The National Weather Service is reporting that “unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves” will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes.
This surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline, the National Weather Service reports.
Live Updates
You can track Laura in many places. Here are a few of them.
Laura to Slam Texas and Louisiana
Hurricane Laura is on a path to slam the Gulf Coast later today. The Refineries Prepare for Landing.
Hurricane Laura’s winds and storm surge threatened much of America’s fuel making and chemicals infrastructure. About a third of U.S. refining capacity, capable of processing roughly six million barrels of oil a day, is located within the storm’s potential path, analytics firm IHS Markit said. As of Tuesday afternoon, companies had closed or said they planned to shut around half of that capacity, IHS said.
Phillips 66 said it planned to close its refinery near Lake Charles, La. as well as nearby terminals and pipelines by midday Wednesday. Farther west, Chevron Corp. said late Tuesday that it planned to close its refinery in Pasadena, Texas.
Meanwhile, companies had shut down some 84% of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico as of midday Tuesday, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, amounting to about 1.6 million barrels a day or roughly 15% of U.S. oil output.
LA Governor Activates Full National Guard
In response, Louisiana Activated its Full National Guard for the first time in 8 years.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said that more than 3,000 members of the guard are currently deployed, with that number to increase this afternoon. In addition to the personnel, 19 aircraft, 920,000 liters of water and more than half a million meals have been pre-deployed.
About 2,000 hotel rooms had been secured this evening to help shelter people as a result of the storm and to also help with social distancing, Edwards said.
All commercial traffic along I-10 is being detoured north from I-10 to I-20, Shawn Wilson commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Transportation said at a press conference.
Texas Anticipates Flash Floods
Texas governor Greg Abbott anticipates Heavy Winds, Flash Floods and River Flooding.
Abbott warned that “the one river that we do anticipate having the greatest challenge is the Sabine River,” which is along the Texas and Louisiana border.
Abbott said there will be a roughly 24-hour period where “there will be no ability for rescuers or operators to get in and assist you in any way.”
The storm surge may reach 30 miles inland.
Over Half of City of Lake Charles LA to be Inundated
The storm surge is likely to put Over Half the City of Lake Charles, Louisiana Underwater due to flooding of the Calcasieu River according to the National Weather Service.
At 13 feet, the record, half the city will be flooded. The crest is expected to hit 15.6 feet.
Be Safe
Be safe, don’t expect to ride this out.
Mish
Well now we have had our global warming lies and propaganda for the day…..
Actual storm surge, about three feet. With a very few exceptions, everyone seems to have survived.
Yeah the meteorologists have egg on their face, no surprise. Call it ‘unsurvivable’ was a classic bureaucratic mistake. I do believe AGW (man made global warming) is real, but this prediction seemed ludicrous from the start.
I think you mean 3 meters. Various source say the storm surge was much less than the 20 feet expected, in the 9-11 feet range. They think the surge may have been higher than that to the East of Cameron, but they had no data from there yet. In Iberia Parish, it was 3 feet. Perhaps that is what you are thinking? In any case, they haven’t ruled out the possibility that the surge could have hit 20 feet in an uninhabited, marshy area near the coast, but they won’t have that data for awhile.
These hurricanes will continue to get worse every year, the result of global warming.
Levi Cowan
@TropicalTidbits
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1h
Incredible wind velocities of 180 – 205 mph just above the ground were observed by a dropsonde in the northeastern eyewall of #Laura, helping to confirm the winds the plane observed. The surface winds would be lower due to friction, but still extreme.
Will come ashore very near to a Category 5.
My perspective on Hurricanes, and FEMA is this: If FEMA pays for disaster from a hurricane, it should take the property back, and turn it into a wildlife preserve. If a person wants to live on the coast, that’s fine, but they should have to pay for private insurance.
Yeap.
Since they are republican states bet trump wont say. Something along the lines of sweeping the forest floor like he said to ca. Maybe they should have built dikes or something.
Dikes are water walls… where were their walls?!?!
Couldn’t get the ocean to pay for them?
Agreed, as long as the same applies to flooding generally, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, etc. I live in California and pay a lot for fire and earthquake insurance, but that’s my choice. I do believe the government should help provide temporary assistance to the displaced, or try to help people evacuate (such as from group homes) where they may have difficulty doing it themselves. Potential property losses should be privately insured.
I would agree that it should apply to any area that is likely to be hit with a repeat event. Tornadoes rarely hit the same area twice, so they wouldn’t be a good example, but floods and wildfires could apply.
Hurricanes rarely hit the exact same stretch of coast either. For that matter, large earthquakes rarely damage the same areas within relatively short periods of time. Like San Francisco in 1906 and 1989. Areas aren’t labeled Tornado alley by accident. I’m from southwestern Minnesota and I don’t think it’s reasonable to exempt tornadoes since everyone there knows it’s a risk, and it’s an even bigger risk as you head further south. The lower tornado risk you reference should be reflected in private insurance rates, not government subsidies.
There are certain stretches that are hit more often by hurricanes than others. Those are the only ones I’m concerned about. Two areas that are very commonly hit are the area between Houston and New Orleans, and the area near Wilmington, NC. I think I read that that the area where Laura hit has been hit something like 5 times in the last 100 years.
As for tornadoes, I’m from Nebraska, and we get them regularly. They hit a very, very small area, however, cutting a narrow swath. I’ve never heard of the same town being hit twice in this area. Maybe in some places they are less random, I don’t know.
in regard to following the tract etc. this guy is one of the best https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/
I’ve been where Katrina and Ike cleared out large swathes of beach-front community.
And years later, there are a lot of concrete pads still sitting there where people had previously lived.
The people who can afford to rebuild typically are the people who can financially stand the effects of another hurricane by either risking to go bare without insurance, or pay the very large insurance rates on their property. Hence, new giant houses.
The less wealthy are pushed off the ocean-front.
The other winners are the builders of investment properties who rent out properties for the season.
thank goodness that covid stuff is over
Larry Kudlow Says The Pandemic Is Over And Trump Was Our Savior, Hallelujah!
Trump’s economic advisor spoke as if the coronavirus pandemic was over during a pre-recorded speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Well, I guess they won’t have to worry about evictions.
(sarcasm) And a “leading economist” says rebuilding houses and roads destroyed by the hurricane will stimulate the economy. The “leading economist” declined to say if he intentionally built his house where hurricanes typically strike.
Sounds like Krugman….he’s a broken window economist. LOL.
I didn’t think Krugman was anything but a leading economist, but the fact that he now hides behind fake labels is a progress.
Disasters stimulate the local economy (rebuilding) but every study I’ve seen says they have zero effect on the national economy. I’d be surprised if Krugman didn’t know this and said anything to the contrary.
Didn’t we go thru this with Harvey and Irma and then Maria??
And Ike. We sailed from Galveston to Rockport the week after Ike. The gulf was a floating garbage dump.
Going to the beach tomorrow night…but to Port A….. Hopefully well out of range. On the upside, surfing might be good for once.
National Weather Service implemented a new prediction model a couple years ago and it’s been horrific. As of yesterday it predicted Category 1. People are going to be stranded.
This is what happen when you have an administration who doesnt care.
I’m not sure what the politics of it were, I’m sure there were plenty. But the decision was made in 2016 and it was put in place last year.
Please share how the administration is responsible for the performance of the model chosen by the NWS?
Fuckwad owns NWS since he Sharpied Alabama into a hurricane forecast.
Most decisions like that are made by career bureaucrats, not political leaders. While I understand why some people dislike Trump, it’s pathetic when people try to politicize everything. There are lives in jeopardy, and that should be the concern.
Sure yeah ok…
I followed the progress of Marco and Laura.
Before Laura cleared Cuba the weather people were discussing rapid intensification due to the warmth of the gulf when it got past Cuba. The only possible slowing of intensification was a small, slightly cooler patch of water from the passage of Marco a day or two previously.
And the storm was predicted to become a serious storm at that point.
But I really don’t think it was downplayed.
The most amazing piece of hurricane prediction I ever recall came last year, where Dorian was heading straight for Florida, but the forecasters said it wouldn’t hit Florida, but would stall out over the Bemuda Islands. And it did–phenomenal predicting which had Floridians chewing their nails for week, hoping it would be true.
The difficulty with forecasting Laura for strength is that it has been on land or very close to land from Puerto Rico, to Hispaniola, to Cuba for most of it’s duration. It cleared Cuba Tuesday, early morning. It’ll hit the US about 38 hours after it cleared Cuba.
There is a whole group of people out there who regularly go after the NWS for “doom-casting” with respect to hurricanes, because usually the storms turn out less than what was expected (see Marco for the last example). You have to be prepared for them to be wrong on the other side, too.
“’It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future’”
So much misunderstanding in this comment and replies – it was enough to make me create an account after silently following@Mish from site to site for so many years!
NOAA is part of the Dept. of Commerce and oversees development and release of weather-related tools and models. The NWS (and others such as the NHC and CPC) use these things to create forecasts for use by the public and other entities. As@shamrock referenced, the announcement that change was coming pre-dates the last presidential election:
The most recent version of their global model (a.k.a. the GFS) is not appreciably better than the older version, in my opinion. For multiple reasons, the GFS continues to be less accurate than the global models of other weather agencies.
Despite the lofty goals in the press release (see first link), it absolutely should not be used as a predictor for tropical system intensity or guidance for how one should prepare ahead of a potential landfall. Local NWS office forecasts and the NHC are places to get that information.
Early Tuesday morning the ‘official’ forecast had Laura strengthening to a major hurricane (cat 3+) and since then it has looked like there will be a significant impact – https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2020/LAURA_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line_and_wind
The GOES satellites are another data source and given what can be observed right now this is not a storm to take lightly-
I’m honored that you took time and energy to address my snark, but my interest in the matter begins and ends with it being a crime to alter a NWS weather prediction. Fuckwad has a god complex and clearly thinks he makes the weather.
You don’t look to the GFS for intensity predictions. You are much better off with the regional hurricane models that run off the GFS’s output to refine the forecast. HWRF did a very good job with Laura predicting a major hurricane. BTW: The ECMWF which critics point to as a superior model was very poor on the track of Laura as it moved through the gulf.
No, one shouldn’t look to the GFS as a diagnostic tool for tropical system intensity (and that was one of the points I made in my post, which was in response to Shamrock’s comment). As a rule tropical systems are much more dynamic than mid-latitude cyclones, so expecting a global model to predict anything about them accurately is going to lead to disappointment. You are correct that they are useful to establish initial conditions for other models.
I think an ensemble mean is the most reliable option for track forecasting at this time.
Can DJT avoid a “Katrina” moment??
He’s surviving COVID which is killing much more than Katrina